Genoa

Genoa came upon the Wild Traveler by accident: it was supposed to be nothing more than a convenient pit stop on the way to his final destination.

It was not.

Arriving at the huge, Metropolis-feeling city at sunset, the Wild Traveler found himself in an unlikely destination that playfully, yet seriously, punched him in the gut. Gigantic edifices decorated with statues of giants; an ultra modern ancient port; maze-like bypasses, overpasses and underpasses; lively medieval dark alleys; deserted boulevards; hills upon hills covered in apartment blocks. Light rain. The smell of the Mediterranean, salty and sour. A pirate ship. A castle. Tunnels and intersections. Whores, pimps and dealers. Japanese tourists. Arabs. Italians. Moroccans. Greeks. Immigrants. Emigrants. People in transit. Even more huge buildings. Even more dark alleys. A terracotta orange. White marble. The aftertaste of a revolution. The feeling from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. Garfield in a coma.

The punch took the Wild Traveler by surprise. As he crouched to catch his breath, he looked up the dark sky and, for a moment, he thought he saw the bat signal hovering over the city.

The punch left a dent in the Wild Traveler’s soul, a precious, little, permanent dent.

The punch made the Wild Traveler wanting to go back to Genoa.

It made Genoa one of his favourite places.