Notte Bianca - Notte Inzuppato

Notte Bianca (White Night) was turned into Notte Inzuppato (Drenched Night) with an almighty thunderstorm that marked the transition from hot stifling summer to cool autumn.

Notte Bianca in Genova is a wonderful city-wide festival that claims to have "Music Everywhere" and arranges to keep attractions open late into the night along with ample bus services. Unfortunately 2008 was marked by a torrential downpour around about 11pm. Such was the timing and nature of the rain, just about everyone (and there were thousands) decided, as if as one person, to catch the next bus home. I have never seen such a rush for so few busses by so many utterly soaked people.

By hook and by crook we got home before 1am with 3 exhausted boys. We did feel like great parents though, as we had managed to note the weather forecast and came out with rain-coats for each of them. Mind you, Jackie and I had nothing - not even an umbrella (but one was procurred at a price - of course).

Still - despite the rain, it was quite honestly one of the best nights we have had in Genova. The "venti" was closed to trafic and instead had stalls and music. (How about Rage Against The Machine playing at full volume outside Coin!). There were stages set up all over the place and 4 huge outside pizza ovens outside the Ducal palace. MTV ran 2 stages and even had UK acts Duffy and Estelle performing. As much as I love the cute welsh 60's throwback though, the highlight for us was seeing local group "Ottocento" play to a small but thrilled audience in the old backstreets of Genova. They played the music of the famous Genovese singer/songwriter Fabrizio De André. They even played through the start of the rain, gingerly covering themselves with a tarpaulin and playing on regardless.