Genova's aquarium

With well over one million visitors per year, the Genoa Aquarium (Acquario di Genova) is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Italy, the second-most visited in Europe and one among the first ten in the world.
There are full...

Garibaldi Street

Originally called Strada Nuova (New Street) or Via Aurea (Golden Street), this street was built to meet the needs of the grandest among the 16th-century Genoese aristocracy who, elevated to the social rank of bankers and financiers, demanded...

Red Palace Gallery

Home to the Brignole-Sale family and dating back to the 17th century, Palazzo Rosso is a stately home featuring frescoes by major 17th century Ligurian painters, such as Piola, De Ferrari and Carlone. In 1874 Maria Brignole-Sale De Ferrari,...

Cathedral of St. Lawrence

San Lorenzo has been the city’s cathedral since the 10th century, but owes its present-day aspect to artists from Pisa, Lombardy, France and Normandy who worked at it between the 12th and the 17th century, merging the Romanesque and Gothic...

White Palace Gallery

Palazzo Bianco was built at the beginning of the 18th century and bequeathed to the City Council by Maria Brignole-Sale De Ferrari, Duchess of Galliera, in 1888 together with a remarkable collection of ancient and modern works of art, meant to...

Porta Soprana

Called Soprana (literally, ‘the highest’) because of its majestic location on the highest spot dominating the plain of Sant’Andrea, this gate used to be the eastern city gate, one of five openings within the round of the Barbarossa Walls, so...

Ducal Palace

The existing structure of Palazzo Ducale dates back to the end of the 16th century, when the architect known as Vannone was commissioned to design a building that better fitted the importance of the newly-formed oligarchic...

House of Colombo

Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa in 1451 and spent his youth with this family in crowded Borgo Lanaioli, the Wool Trade District of craftsmen and weavers along an alley called Vico Dritto di Ponticello.
The house that visitors now see is...

Museum of Saint Augustine (of Architecture and Ligurian Sculpture)

The building complex of Sant’Agostino dates back to the 13th century and still features a Gothic-style church and a peculiar tile-clad brick bell tower.
The former convent dwellings around the two cloisters now house both Genoese and Ligurian...

Church of San Matteo

Certainly one of the most beautiful churches in town, also due to the fact that the small square laying before it is one of the best preserved corners of Medieval Genoa. This place has a charm of its own, both on quiet mornings and on summer...

Lantern

This ‘official’ landmark of Genoa has been the most famous lighthouse in Italy since 1543. One hundred and seventeen (117) metros high, the lighthouse beam searches the city, the harbour and the sea for a distance of up to 33 miles. The tale goes...

Piazza De Ferrari

Piazza De Ferrari is the very centre of the city: This is where the Genoese meet for political demonstrations and sports celebrations, an easy meeting place for both locals and tourists, and where the Christmas tree is erected each year....

National Gallery of Palazzo Spinola di Pellicceria

Magnificent Palazzo Spinola di Pellicceria seems to suddenly materialize before one’s eyes as one looks out for it in the tangle of narrow alley-ways and tiny squares of the old town centre set between Via della Maddalena and Via San Luca.
Its...

Royal Palace National Gallery

Galata - Sea Museum

Made up of a double structure, one ancient and one modern, and located between the Commenda di Prè and the docks, both of which have contributed to writing the history of Genoa and its harbour, the Galata Museum is the largest and most innovative...

Palazzo San Giorgio

This elegant building, part Medieval and part from the 16th century, began taking on its present shape in 1260, when ‘Captain of the People’ Guglielmo Boccanegra decided that Genoa should have a public building near the harbour. The original...

Bigo

Bigo is one of the most spectacular attractions inside the Old Harbour Area: A panoramic lift climbing 40 meters high and offering visitors a view of the harbour and the city from a decidedly unusual perspective.
Designed by Architect Renzo...

Church of Jesus and Saints Ambrose and Andrew

This church is known as Chiesa del Gesù or Chiesa dei Santi Ambrogio e Andrea because its 6th-century founder was Bishop Onorato from Milan, who ran away to Genoa to avoid Langobard persecutions. In fact, Saint Ambrose is Milan’s patron saint....

Villa del Principe (Palazzo Doria-Pamphilj)

This villa-cum-palace was the private residence of Andrea Doria – Admiral to Emperor Charles V of Habsburg and Genoa’s ‘father figure’ in the mid-16th century.
Principe, in Italian, means ‘Prince’, and this Palace owes its name to the title of...

Church of San Donato

San Donato church is an authentic Romanesque jewel, also thanks to 19th-century restoration works carried by Alfredo De Andrade, who not only made a number of alterations, but also had the post 16th-century plaster layers removed. The octagonal...

Church of St. Peter in Banchi

Boccadasse

At the end of Corso Italia promenade lies Boccadasse, an unspoilt fishing village that has preserved its fascinating beauty and atmosphere.
Its name literally means “donkey’s mouth” - perhaps because of the cosy embrace-like shape of this tiny...

Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno

Together with Père Lachaise in Paris and Recoleta in Buenos Aires, Staglieno is one of the most important monumental cemeteries in the world.
This cemetery has quite rightly been classed as a museum of bourgeois art from the 19th and 20th...

Gallery of Modern Art (GAM) - Villa Serra - Nervi

Set inside a scenic park, this 16th-century building houses almost 400 works of art, paintings, sculptures, drawings and engravings, all dating back from the beginning of the 19th century to well into the 20th century.
GAM’s exhibits stem from...

Villa Durazzo Pallavicini (Pegli)

This large 19th-century park belonging to Villa Pallavicini extends over one of the hills behind Pegli, and creates a green lung for this western district that was once a renowned spa popular with the European aristocracy. Architect Michele...

Spianata Castelletto - Belvedere Luigi Montaldo

Of the several scenic viewpoints over the centre of Genoa, the esplanade Spianata di Castelletto is by far the most famous. This large esplanade, shaded by maritime pine-trees and open on three sides, stands 80 metres above sea-level. On the...

Museum of World Cultures - Albertis Castle

Built between 1886 and 1892 atop a 16th century fortification, this Neo-gothic style mansion and grounds complex dominates both the city and the harbour and delights visitors with its extraordinary views.
Donated to the City of Genoa by its...

Frugone collections - Villa Grimaldi - Nervi

18th-century Villa Grimaldi Fassio was restored in the 1960s by architect Luigi Carlo Daneri and bought by the City of Genoa in 1979. Since 1993, the museum houses two very special collections of paintings, sculptures and drawings by Italian and...

Walking Anita Garibaldi - Nervi

Certainly the most romantically inspiring of the entire Genoese coast, this fascinating promenade stretches over two kilometres of rocky seashore between Nervi’s diminutive harbour and the tiny village of Capolungo. This is the place in Genoa...

Royal Palace

Palazzo Reale is the most princely among the mansions of the noble in Via Balbi. It is called the Royal Palace because, during the 19th century, the Savoy Kings chose it as their residence when in town. Before belonging to the Kings of Sardinia,...

Basilica of the Most Holy Annunziata of the Vastato

With its grand neoclassical façade, designed by architects Barabino and Resasco in the mid-19th century, this church is an elegant backdrop to a square that is constantly teeming with university students from the humanities colleges located in...

Museum of Contemporary Art of Villa Croce

Villa Croce Museum – housed inside a 19th century Neo-classical-style villa set in its own grounds - was opened in February 1985 and hosts a year-round programme of exhibitions focusing on contemporary artistic research.
Alongside exhibitions,...

Nervi Parks - Serra Gropallo - Nervi

The parkland area known as Parchi di Nervi encompasses a delightful, 9-hectar green enclave of Romantic inspiration, made up by joining the gardens of three magnificent mansion houses, i.e. Villa Groppallo, Villa Serra and Villa Grimaldi Fassio,...

Oriental Art Museum Edorado Chiossone

Genoa has one of the richest and most wide-ranging museums of Japanese art in Europe including paintings, prints, weapons and armour, enamel objects, ceramics, lacquerware, porcelain, musical instruments, theatre masks, costumes, fabrics,...

Piazza San Matteo

One of the most picturesque corners of Genoa today is what was once the D’Oria, or Doria, district, which belonged to one among the most powerful families in the city.
In fact, Admiral Andrea Doria entered into an alliance with Charles V of...

Chiesa e Commenda di San Giovanni di Prè

The church of San Giovanni Evangelista di Prè faces out onto Genoa’s most multi-ethnic district, once a landing place for migrants arriving from poorer, far-away lands. With the neighbouring Commenda, this church is part of an important...

Museo Giannettino Luxoro - Nervi

The Luxoro Museum building, set within magnificent grounds overlooking the rocky cliffs of Nervi, is an elegant early 20th-century mansion donated to the City of Genoa together with its contents in 1946.
The wonderful halls of this museum...

Wolfsonian - Nervi

The city owes this museum to the passion and taste of American art collector Mitchell Wolfson Jr., who has strong, long-lasting ties to Italy. The Wolfsonian houses a selection of pieces from his personal collection, which he donated to the city,...

Corso Italia

A remarkable example of Rationalist architecture, Corso Italia, Genoa’s seaside promenade, unravels eastward from Piazza Rossetti.
Although this is not the only city seaside walkway, Corso Italia certainly is the most popular as it is the...

Cotton Warehouses - Children's Town

There is a place for the little ones inside the Magazzini del Cotone building (the former cotton warehouses) in the very heart of the Old Harbour area: a place where grown-ups are not allowed in alone. La Città dei Bambini (The Children’s City)...