Genoa
UNESCO World Heritage Site (Genoa: Le Strade Nuove And The System Of The Palazzi Dei Rolli, Inscribed 2006) · Genoa, Liguria
Genoa spent centuries as a maritime republic with more money than appetite for showing it off, and the result is a city that hides its best rooms behind plain doors. One street, laid out in the sixteenth century for the families who ran the place, is lined end to end with palaces so grand that the republic kept a public register of them and billeted visiting ambassadors in whichever one came up by lot. Forty-odd of those palaces and the streets themselves are a World Heritage site, and three are open as museums with a Rubens, a Caravaggio and Paganini's violin between them. Below all that sprawls the caruggi, the densest and tallest medieval alley maze in Europe, where the sun reaches the paving for about an hour a day. On the seaward edge Renzo Piano rebuilt the old harbour around the largest aquarium in Italy. It is a working port, grubby in patches, entirely unbothered about visitors, and it makes the best focaccia on earth.
Via Garibaldi 9, Genoa, Liguria, 16124, Italy
ALL TIMES UNVERIFIED FOR THIS ROW. Broadly: the Musei di Strada Nuova open Tuesday to Sunday with a late afternoon close, and Palazzo Reale keeps similar hours with a Monday closure. The Aquarium opens daily and late in summer, with timed entry at weekends. The Cathedral of San Lorenzo opens daily with a midday interval. Via Garibaldi, the caruggi and the Porto Antico are public and never close. Staglieno cemetery opens daily in the morning and closes mid-afternoon. Rolli Days are announced a few weeks ahead and booked online. Confirm all of it before travelling.