Acquario di Genova

The Largest Aquarium In Italy And Among The Largest In Europe, Built By Renzo Piano On The Porto Antico For The 1992 Columbus Anniversary, With About Seventy Tanks · Genoa, Liguria

Renzo Piano rebuilt Genoa's derelict old harbour for the 1992 Columbus anniversary and the aquarium is what he put at the end of the pier: a long low ship-shaped building tied to the quay, which was the point, since the city wanted the water used rather than looked at. Inside are around seventy tanks holding something close to twelve thousand animals, the largest collection in Italy and among the biggest in Europe, and the route through them is a single one-way hour and a half that ends in a floating annexe moored alongside. The exhibits people remember are the dolphins in an open-air pool, a sharks tank you walk beside rather than under, a jellyfish gallery lit in the dark, and a humid recreated Amazon flooded forest with manatees in it. It is the most visited paid attraction in Italy outside Rome, it is a genuinely good wet-weather answer on a coast that gets a lot of rain, and it is expensive.

Ponte Spinola, Genoa, Liguria, 16128, Italy

NO OPENING TIME HERE WAS CHECKED. The structure: open daily, including most public holidays, from mid-morning to early evening with LATER CLOSING IN SUMMER AND AT WEEKENDS, and a last admission roughly ninety minutes before closing because that is how long the one-way route takes. Timed slots are sold through the day and sell out at peak periods. Feeding times and keeper talks are published daily at the entrance rather than fixed. The Porto Antico around it never closes.

Acquario di Genova on Spottos · Explore more places on Spottos