Book Genoa tours & attraction tickets

Liguria's capital occupies one of the most dramatic positions of any Italian city, pressed between the Apennines and the Ligurian Sea along a narrow coastal strip that has shaped its character for centuries. Genoa grew wealthy as a maritime republic, rivalling Venice and Pisa at the height of its power, and the evidence of that wealth is still legible in the city's fabric: the Caruggi, a dense medieval labyrinth of lanes and alleys that forms one of the largest historic centres in Europe, and the Via Garibaldi, a Renaissance street of palaces so significant that it is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside the Strade Nuove.

First-time visitors tend to arrive at the Porto Antico, the old harbour redeveloped in the 1990s by Renzo Piano, who was born here. The waterfront gives an immediate sense of the city's scale and its relationship with the sea. The Aquarium of Genoa sits at the edge of the basin and remains one of the largest in Europe, drawing families and curious adults in equal measure; combined tickets pairing aquarium entry with a harbour boat tour offer a practical way to take in the port from the water, which is the angle from which Genoa has always made its strongest impression. Nearby, the Galata Maritime Museum traces the city's seafaring history across several floors, and its resident Nazario Sauro submarine, moored in the dock outside, is a genuinely unusual exhibit that puts the scale of twentieth-century naval engineering into sharp relief.