San Remo and Albenga

This morning I went by train to Albenga, 1 hour along th coast towards Genova.
Albenga has a small old town in the centre still with lots of the medieval  walls surviving and small narrow lanes. In the centre there is a Romanesque cathedral, mostly built in the 11th century and added to in the early 14th, another church , a bishops palace right next to the cathedral and a baptistry.

I went first to the baptistry and  museum in the bishops house. A lady took a few of us around.  She spoke slowly in Italian and I got most of what she said. The baptistry was built end of the 5th , early 6th century and is still used today. There was a lovely bit of mosaic in part of the ceiling, reminiscent of those I saw in 2007 in Ravenna.  It had 10 sides to the outside wall and the inside wall, had 8 sides.

The museum was ok, but I am a bit over museums.  Several guide books said it had a Caravaggio . I was surprised, I though I had looked up where they all were in italy. Turns out it was from the Caravaggio  school, ìe like his work and probably done by a pupil.

I then went to the cathedral which was lovely and plain with large stone columns, an interesting ceiling and the remains of some very old looking frescoes. There was one candle lighting stand and it was a grade 3. No choice. All you did was put a coin in the slot.  However, the other church in the old piazza had about 6 candle lighting stands.  They were  a grade 1 plus. Not only could I light my own tea-light sized candle, I could choose which of 4 colours. I am a little undecided as to whether the whole effect looked a bit gaudy, howe er,  I made the best of the situation, chose a red one for H, then a blue, yellow and green one for A and their children. Again I lit the blue, yellow and  green one from the red candle.

I had no map of Albenga other than the maps.me app. This is the app that took me to the non existent mosque 3 days ago. Today I spent a while wandering round the maze of laneways  but only found 1 out of 3  'Churches'  marked on the map. It was no longer a church, but a building that was roughly the right size.  That was 1 flop not 3.

I caught a train back to san remo and stopped to look at another Orthodox church which was not open (lunchtkme)  that goes jn the pending pile, and then a Lutheran church that had a large sign that said it had a service on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month. A flop, besides  they probably donot have candles to light.

I had had a very non description almost unpleasant sandwich on the railway station at albenga so figured I should have a gelato on my way back to my apartment.