I am not from Genoa, but she has been in me and with me for as long as I can remember.
Genoa is in my family’s genes. She is the harbour they escaped from before returning to sail away again. She is our history and our culture, the foundation of the way we speak, all those blunt and economical expressions that make Ligurians what we are. She is our heart, because in Genoa, you find everything.
So I find excuses for a day there: a performance, a doctor, some shopping, a friend. But a few years ago, I saw her differently, walking with people who were discovering her for the first time, and some things I had always half-known came sharply into focus.
Genoa is female. She is stubborn and obstinate, complex and often grumpy, passionate, varied, contradictory. She is beautiful, vertical, and has to be seen looking up.
That last part is not a figure of speech. It is the practical instruction for this walk. Genoa hides almost everything worth seeing above eye level, and if you walk through her looking straight ahead, as one does in most cities, you will miss her entirely.
Genova è la città dei contrasti, dei grandi palazzi e dei miseri caruggi …
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
Start at the water: Caricamento and Sottoripa
Begin at the Old Port, where a wooden galleon is moored, the film set built for Roman Polanski’s Pirates and never taken away. It is a good place to start because the first thing you do is tip your head back and look at Zena, as she is called in dialect, rising all around you.
Palazzo San Giorgio stands here, once the Palazzo delle Compere di San Giorgio and now the port authority, its frescoed façade throwing colour across Piazza Caricamento. The square is named for the cargo loading and unloading that filled it for two centuries, as this is where the docks began. The sea once came right up to the arcades.
Those arcades are Sottoripa, among the first public porticoes built in Italy. Where the warehouses stood, you now find old shops that have been there for generations, and, alas, a McDonald’s. Walk beneath them with your nose in the air: there are vaults, exposed beams, frescoes, coats of arms, and a hundred small details left behind by the passing of time.
Into the caruggi
From Caricamento the famous alleys of Genoa open up, most of them named for the trade that was practised there: Vico Indoratori, the gilders’ alley; Via Orefici, the goldsmiths’ street; the butchers’ quarter of Soziglia.
But the trades are only half the story. The rest is legend and saying and popular memory, which is why you will also find something called Vico dell’Amor Perfetto, the alley of perfect love.
Getting lost here is the point. The views are unexpected, the architecture is startling, and Genoa’s many moods come at you round every corner. And again: look up, into the strips of light between the buildings, past the washing strung across the gap.
Fossatello, Via del Campo, and a pastry shop that is a memory
Take Via al Ponte Calvi away from the water and you arrive at Piazza Fossatello, one of the city’s beating hearts.
Three things meet here. Palazzo Pallavicini, one of the Rolli Palaces, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2006. The Rolli were extraordinary: from 1576, official lists of the grandest private houses in the city, and when a foreign dignitary arrived, the Republic drew lots to decide which family would have the honour, and the expense, of putting them up. A city that made its aristocracy compete to host the state’s guests.
Second, Via del Campo, made immortal by Fabrizio De André’s song, which leads you into Pré, the old quarter of ill repute, where, until the Merlin Law of 1958, the busiest brothels in Genoa were found.
And third, Via Lomellini, where Mazzini was born and where the Museum of the Risorgimento now stands.
Then, on the corner of Via Fossatello, one of my favourite places in the city.
The Pasticceria Liquoreria Marescotti, rescued from dust and abandonment by Alessandro Cavo. I love it for the architecture, the old fittings, the cakes, the aperitivo, and the weekend brunch. But mostly I love it because Alessandro is the son and grandson of people who were dear to my grandfather, and to my great-grandmother before him. They come from Voltaggio, a small village just behind Genoa, where the Cavo family have always made the legendary soft amaretti, which are my madeleines.
Go in. Eat the amaretti of Voltaggio. And get Alessandro to tell you the history of the place, because it is worth hearing from him.
Piazza Banchi and the cathedral
From there to Piazza Banchi, presided over by the Loggia dei Mercanti and the brightly coloured church of San Pietro in Banchi.
Beyond its history and its commercial importance, I come here to watch the endless queue in front of the old woman reading cards, and because I cannot stand in this square without thinking of the Genoese actor Gilberto Govi, and smiling.
Then the square of the Cinque Lampadi, and the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, with its façade in bands of black and white marble, a Genoese speciality and a mark of nobility. Look at the two towers: one finished, and one abandoned halfway, ending in a loggia. I find it beautiful precisely because it is unresolved.
Piazza San Matteo, and why the Genoese are called mean
Now go to Piazza San Matteo, ringed by the coloured houses of the Doria family across several centuries.
Walk to the middle of the space in front of the church, look up, and turn slowly on the spot. Loggias, roof gardens, frescoed ceilings, and windows.
Except that many of the windows are not windows.
They are painted. And you will find them all over the territory once ruled by the Republic of Genoa, because the Republic taxed windows, and the Genoese, rather than pay, simply painted them on.
Which raises a question I will leave with you. Is that why we have the reputation for being stingy? Or is it, as I prefer to think, the most Genoese solution imaginable: refuse to pay, and make it beautiful anyway.
The Diocesan Museum, and the birth of blue jeans
I had never been to the Diocesan Museum until that walk, though it opened in the nineties, and I am very glad I finally went.
Inside, beyond the collections and the lovely cloister of the Canons of San Lorenzo, hang the Teli della Passione, the Passion Cloths: sixteenth-century lengths of linen dyed with indigo and painted in a single colour with scenes from the Passion of Christ, used as vestments at Easter.
Stand in front of them, and you are looking at the ancestors of your jeans.
That indigo-dyed cloth is the blu di Genova. Tough, cheap, and hard-wearing, it was used for sails, for tarpaulins, and for the clothes of the sailors and dockers of this port, who needed something that could be worn wet or dry. Genoa exported it, and it travelled under its French name: bleu de Gênes.
Say that aloud in English, quickly. Blue jeans.
The trousers were assembled in America, but the fabric and the name came from this harbour. Nîmes tried to copy the cloth and produced something a little different, which is why we also have the word denim, de Nîmes. But the jeans in your wardrobe are named after the city you are standing in, and the oldest ancestors we have of them are hanging in a quiet museum beside the cathedral, painted with the story of the Passion.
I find that almost unreasonably wonderful.
Piazza de Ferrari, and a flag you will recognise
The walk ends in Piazza de Ferrari, the heart of the city, ringed by the Carlo Felice opera house, the Palazzo Ducale, the old Stock Exchange and the regional government. From here run the shopping streets, Via Roma and Via XX Settembre.
In the middle is the bronze fountain, endlessly photographed, and increasingly dyed a different colour to mark this cause or that.
And one last thing, which you will have noticed by now if you have been walking with your head back as instructed.
The flag. A red cross on a white field, flying everywhere in this city. The cross of Saint George, carried first by pilgrims, then by crusaders, and finally adopted by the Superba herself.
Look at it again. You know that flag. It is the flag of England, and part of the Union Jack.
The story Genoa tells is that English ships once flew it in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea so that they would be taken for Genoese and left alone, and that they paid the Republic an annual tribute for the privilege. Historians argue about how literally true that is. But it is a very Genoese story: a city that worked out how to charge rent on its own reputation.
Practical notes
How long. The walk above is a comfortable half-day at a Genoese pace, which is to say with a coffee, an amaretto, and a certain amount of standing still and staring upwards. Give it four hours, more if you go into the museums.
Where to start. Piazza Caricamento, at the Old Port. It is a few minutes from Genova Principe station, and the metro stops nearby.
Wear proper shoes. The caruggi are stone, uneven and often wet, and the city is vertical.
Eat. You are in the birthplace of pesto and focaccia. Have focaccia in the morning, standing up. Have farinata, the chickpea pancake, hot from the oven. Do not eat near the cathedral where the menus have photographs.
A word of care. Pré and parts of the old town are lively, layered and entirely worth walking, but they are not a museum. Use the sense you would use in the old quarter of any port city, particularly after dark.
Genoa from above, and Genoa from the sea
When I first wrote this walk, I ended by saying that Genoa also has to be seen from the sea, and from her forts, and lived through the words of her songwriters, and that those were other stories I would tell another time.
I have finally told one of them. If you want the vertical city, the walls that are the longest in Europe, the line of forts along the ridge, and the wild capers flowering out of the old sea wall, that walk is here.
The songwriters are still owed. Give me time.
Further reading
- The Rolli Palaces, and the Rolli Days, when they open to the public
- My walk through the walls, the Old Port and the forts of Genoa
- Botteghe Storiche di Genova, the city’s register of historic shops
FAQ
What is the best walking route through Genoa’s old town? A good half-day route starts at Piazza Caricamento by the Old Port, passes under the Sottoripa arcades, winds through the caruggi to Piazza Fossatello and Via del Campo, then on to Piazza Banchi, the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, Piazza San Matteo and the Diocesan Museum, ending in Piazza de Ferrari. Allow around four hours.
Why are blue jeans named after Genoa? The tough indigo-dyed cotton used for sails and workwear in the port of Genoa was exported under its French name, bleu de Gênes, meaning blue of Genoa, which in English became blue jeans. The word denim comes from Nîmes, de Nîmes, where weavers made a similar cloth. Genoa’s Diocesan Museum holds sixteenth-century indigo Passion Cloths regarded as among the oldest ancestors of the fabric.
What are the Rolli Palaces in Genoa? The Rolli were official lists, begun in 1576, of the grandest private palaces in Genoa. When a foreign dignitary visited, the Republic drew lots to decide which noble family would host them. Forty-two of these palaces have been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2006, and many are open to the public during the Rolli Days.
Why do Genoa’s buildings have painted windows? The Republic of Genoa taxed windows, so rather than pay, the Genoese painted false windows onto their façades, complete with frames, shutters and reflections. You can still see them across the old territories of the Republic, and they are one of the reasons to walk the city looking upwards.
Why does Genoa have the same flag as England? Genoa’s flag, a red cross on a white ground, is the cross of Saint George, carried by pilgrims and crusaders and adopted by the Republic. It is also the flag of England and part of the Union Jack. Genoa tells the story that English ships once flew it for protection in the Mediterranean, paying the Republic an annual tribute, though historians debate how literally true this is.
