GENOA (GENOVA)
Genoa is a "place", which overwhelms more and more every day[…] it abounds in the strangest contrasts; picturesque things appear at every step, Ugly, Vile, Wonderful, captivating and offensive", wrote in year 1844 Dickens, and this description still fits the city. It is a surprisingly diverse place and to completely omit it would be a big mistake. In the center of it all is surrounded by a multitude of medieval streets port. This old district has more life than all the seaside resorts combined..
Genoa came to prosperity thanks to the sea, through trading, colony exploitation and lawful piracy. In the thirteenth century, it became one of the five Italian maritime republics, and at the same time an implacable enemy of two others, Venice and Pisa. With them, too, she remained in a dangerous conflict for the city.. However, Genoa has experienced even greater threats., because in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries at the same time, when it lost its position as the financial capital of Europe, france and Austria invaded it.
During the period of Italian unification, Genoa enjoyed a relatively free press and recognized at least some of the civil liberties.. Political refugees from others came here, the more autocratic parts of Italy, and that is why radical thought flourished here. One of the main supporters of unification was born in Genoa, Mazzini, and from the port of Genoa in the year 1860 Garibaldi, whose family came from the vicinity of the city, set off with his "Thousand" to Sicily. This is also where the Italian Industrial Revolution began., and contacts and trade routes to the Middle East, to North Africa and Spain made, that the city has been influenced by different cultures. Currently, the port is experiencing a crisis, but Genoa remained the center of new immigration.
The life of the city is concentrated between two railway stations and the seashore. In the portals of the former palaces there are grocery stores, between refined, expensive furniture stores are pressed carpentry workshops, and everything is surrounded by a crowd of people, who speak a mixture of Neapolitan dialect that is difficult to understand, Calabrian and Portuguese. There is so much beautiful architecture and art collections here, that is enough for a few days of sightseeing. It is worth finding such small medieval churches, like San Donato or Santa Maria di Casteilo, Cattedrale di San Lorenzo with a magnificent treasury, as well as Renaissance palaces with galleries of Flemish art, Oriental or pre-Columbian. In addition, you can go to the cinema or theater here, for a performance of a music band, to an elegant bar or club. Political life is also flourishing here.
Orientation in the city
The Old Town — a tangle of streets — stretches towards the port, the southern border being via Gramsci running along the coast, and the northern Via Balbi and its extensions. The newer district of the city starts to the right of Piazza de Ferrari, from where through the commercial center of Genoa, straight to the area around Stazione Brignole, Via XX Settembre. Getting to know the city takes some time, it is worth paying attention to the location of both stations, which are useful reference points. Outside the center, for Stazione Brignole, there is a beach district Albaro, and even further – a small fishing port belonging to the city today, Boccadasse. The higher regions of Genoa are mainly residential areas. The rest of the city stretches over a narrow, 35-a kilometer strip around the bay, from Nervi in the east to Pegli in the west (both summer resorts are already suburbs).