Livorno

Fortunately the flight from Catania to Rome did not suffer any delays and I was able to catch an afternoon train that got me to Livorno while it was still light. I checked into my lodgings, which were a bit of a walk from the train station because anything closer was much more expensive and went to get dinner and have a look at the city centre.

Livorno has some canals which were used for trade.

The old market building which obviously wasn't open this late in the day and tomorrow, Sunday, neither.

The vast Piazza Della Republica.

Livorno is in Tuscany and considered the most modern of its cities. It ranks third after Florence and Prato in population. It's an important port and ferries connect it to Bastia in Corsica, which is why I chose to pass through.

I'll skip forward to Sunday morning so you'll see the photos brighten up. The ferry didn't leave until 4 in the afternoon so I had time to explore the city.

The Cattedrale di San Francesco on Piazza Grande, just off the main drag.

Looking in the other direction from the Cattedrale.

One snippet I came across while checking my phone for places to visit is that Leghorn is the anglicisation of Livorno (how?) and this gave the name to the Leghorn chicken breed because they were exported from here.

The council offices a couple of blocks away.

The Town Hall nearby. Livorno was definitely tidier than Sicilian cities.

This is the ancient customs office, but certainly not in use any more, with modern port facilities.

A classic shopping centre and cinema, but sadly disused, probably could not compete with shopping malls reached by cars.

Government offices. There's that term Questura again, that we saw in the Montalbano tour.

I got to have some seafood at a roadside kiosk for lunch.

Then I caught a shuttle bus to the ferry terminal. I'm glad that I went early because it didn't cater well for foot passengers, favouring car passengers, and I got shuttled from location to location until I found the right place to wait for boarding.

I got into Bastia around 9 pm, but the hotel was quite welcoming. They must be used to late arrivals. I got a good night's sleep.