Genoa discovery guide

Genoa has one of the largest and most densely populated historic centres in Europe, a UNESCO inscription covering 42 aristocratic palaces, and the busiest port in Italy and the Mediterranean. Christopher Columbus was born here, and the republic that ran it lasted from the eleventh century to 1797.

The main travel issue

Two problems compound. Almost everyone is passing through on the way to the Riviera, so the city gets a few hours at most. And the thing it is listed for is largely shut: of the 42 inscribed palaces, many are privately owned and cannot be entered at all.

The solution

Go for the three that are museums — the Musei di Strada Nuova, Palazzo Spinola and Palazzo Reale — and come on a Saturday, when licensed guides run tours through the centre to the others. Then treat the caruggi as the attraction rather than the obstacle, and stay a night.

The short answer

April to June and September to October. Genoa's climate is genuinely mild — a hot-summer Mediterranean one, averaging 20°C by day across the year — so the shoulder seasons here are warmer and longer than inland Italy's.

Spring

April to June is the best window. The city is comfortable, the Riviera day trips are open but not yet full, and the light on a coast that faces south is at its best. May is the strongest single month.

Summer

July and August average 28°C by day and 22°C at night, which is hot but less oppressive than the Po plain because the sea moderates it. The complication is not Genoa but everywhere around it: this is when the Riviera fills, the Cinque Terre becomes genuinely overcrowded, and trains along the coast are packed. Staying in Genoa and travelling out early is the sensible shape for a summer trip.

Autumn

September is excellent and October is quieter. The caveat is rain: Genoa gets around 1,040 mm a year, which is high for Italy, and autumn is when much of it arrives — the city sits where moist sea air meets the Apennines, and that produces genuinely heavy downpours rather than drizzle.

Winter

Mild by Italian standards, averaging around 14°C at night across the year as a whole, and far gentler than Milan or Bologna an hour inland. It is also the quietest time in the old town, and the museums and palaces are empty. If the trip is about the Rolli and the caruggi rather than the coast, winter is a defensible choice.

The one date that matters

Guided tours of the historic centre's palaces run every Saturday, which makes a Saturday the most productive single day to be in Genoa if the Rolli are why you came.

Half a day, which is what most people give it

If this is a stop between trains, do the Via Garibaldi and the Musei di Strada Nuova — three connected palaces, one ticket, and the clearest possible demonstration of what the Rolli inscription is about. Then walk down into the caruggi as far as Piazza De Ferrari and the cathedral of San Lorenzo.

A full day

Add the harbour. The Porto Antico was rebuilt for the Expo of 1992 and holds the Aquarium, the largest in Italy; it takes a good half day on its own if you have children. Otherwise go up instead: a funicular or one of the public lifts to the ridge gives the only view that makes sense of a city thirty kilometres long and ten deep.

Two days or more, which is where it pays

The second day is for the palaces and the alleys properly. Palazzo Spinola and Palazzo Reale are the other two museum palaces, and if you are here on a Saturday the licensed guided tours of the centre reach palaces that are otherwise closed. The old town rewards being walked without a route — it is dense enough that a plan is usually the wrong tool.

Using Genoa as a base

This is the argument most visitors get backwards. Genoa is a far better base for the Riviera than the Riviera is: it is the rail junction for the whole coast, rooms cost a fraction of Portofino's, and both the eastern and western Rivieras are short trips. Liguria's coastal towns are day trips from Genoa, not the other way round.

What to skip

Do not plan on seeing the Rolli palaces from the inside unless you have checked which ones are open. Most of the 42 are private, and an itinerary built on a list of palace names will mostly produce closed doors.

A maritime republic's habits, seven centuries deep

Genoa was an independent republic from the eleventh century to 1797 — more than seven hundred years — and the city still behaves like one: mercantile, private, sceptical of outsiders, and considerably less interested in being liked than Florence or Venice. The Genoese reputation within Italy is for thrift and reserve, and the city tends to confirm it cheerfully.

That character has a visible architecture. The Palazzi dei Rolli were not public monuments but private houses entered on an official roll, from which the republic assigned lodging to visiting dignitaries by lot — a system that made hospitality a civic obligation of the rich. The result is a World Heritage Site made of private property, which is still exactly what it is.

The caruggi

The historic centre is one of the largest and most densely populated in Europe, and it is built as a network of alleys — caruggi — some barely wide enough for two people, running between tall buildings on the slope above the port. It is not a preserved quarter. It is where a large part of the city lives, with all the noise, washing and ordinary life that implies, and it can feel intimidating to a visitor used to open Italian squares. Walking it in daylight without a destination is the best thing in Genoa.

Ligurian food, which is a cuisine of scarcity

Liguria has almost no farmland — the mountains come down to the sea — and the cooking reflects it: herbs, flour, oil, vegetables and small fish rather than meat.

• Pesto genovese — basil, pine nuts, pecorino and Parmesan, oil and garlic, traditionally served with trofie or trenette.
• Focaccia genovese — dimpled, salty, oily, eaten at any hour including breakfast.
• Farinata — a chickpea-flour flatbread baked in copper pans, sold by the slice.
• Anchovies and stoccafisso — the sea's cheap protein, treated seriously.

The sciamadde, the old fried-food and savoury-pie shops of the alleys, are where to find most of it.

Christopher Columbus and 1992

Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa around 1451, and the fifth centenary of his first voyage in 1992 is the hinge of the modern city: the Expo held for it rebuilt the derelict old harbour into the public Porto Antico, with the Aquarium at its centre. A city that had turned its back on its own waterfront got it returned.

A working city, not a destination under strain

Genoa is the rare major Italian city where visitor pressure is not the problem. It is a port and an industrial centre of 566,000 people with a historic core that is genuinely residential — among the most densely populated in Europe — and the overwhelming majority of the people who arrive are in transit to the Riviera. The useful question here is not how to tread more lightly but how to leave anything behind at all.

Practical ways to travel well here

• Stop, rather than change trains. This is the single most useful thing a visitor can do for Genoa. The city absorbs the cost of being the Riviera's gateway — the traffic, the two main stations, the crowds at Principe and Brignole — and sees very little of the return. A night here instead of a night in Portofino changes that arithmetic completely.
• Pay to enter the palaces that are open. The UNESCO site is 42 palaces of which many are private; the three museum groups that can be visited are what funds conservation and makes the case for more opening. Entering them is the direct way to support the thing the city is listed for.
• Respect the caruggi as housing. The alleys of the historic centre are not a heritage quarter. People live in them, hang washing across them and raise children in them, and they are busiest and noisiest because they are homes.
• Eat the regional food, which is genuinely regional. Ligurian cooking is specific and protected — basil pesto, focaccia, farinata, anchovies — and the bakeries and sciamadde of the old town are the real economy of the centre.
• Use the funiculars and lifts rather than taxis. Genoa has almost no flat ground, and its public lifts and funiculars are ordinary transport rather than attractions. Using them is both cheaper and the way the city actually moves.

What Genoa actually costs

Genoa is the best value of any major Italian city, and the reason is simply that almost nobody stays. It is a working port with a large resident population and a hotel stock priced for business travel and transit rather than for tourism, which makes it dramatically cheaper than the Riviera it serves.

The arbitrage worth knowing

This is the single most useful financial fact about the Ligurian coast. A room in Genoa costs a fraction of a room in Portofino or the Cinque Terre villages, and Genoa is the rail junction for the entire coast in both directions. Basing yourself here and travelling out is substantially cheaper than basing yourself on the coast and travelling in, and the journeys are short either way.

Where the money goes

• Accommodation is the saving, not the cost. Business-oriented hotels near the two main stations and in the modern centre are inexpensive outside trade-fair weeks.
• Eating is cheap and good, because Ligurian food is a cuisine of scarcity rather than luxury. Focaccia and farinata are sold by weight by the slice; the sciamadde of the old town serve substantial food for very little.
• The palaces are moderate, and the Musei di Strada Nuova sell a single ticket covering three connected palaces, which is the best value cultural purchase in the city.
• The Aquarium is the one significant admission. It is the largest in Italy and takes half a day, and it is priced accordingly — worth planning for rather than adding on.
• Transport is modest. The metro is small, the buses and funiculars are run by AMT on an integrated network, and the public lifts are ordinary transport. Fares are published by the operator rather than quoted here.