Hemmed in between harbour and mountains, Genoa is coloured by its history, writes Lorraine Courtney
HERE'S A good pub quiz question: where do jeans come from? Answer: Genoa, also known as Genes in French. The blue cloth was worn by dockers and found its way to America - possibly on Christopher Columbus's caravel. The great explorer was, of course, Genovese. If you look in the Museo Diocesano, next to the cathedral, you'll find a remarkable set of hangings dating from the 16th century showing the Passion of Christ. They are painted on Blu di Genova (also known, because the dye came from the French city of Nîmes, as denim).
Italians have a funny gesture that they make when referring to the Genovesi. They pull their arms up inside the sleeves of their jackets so you can see only the tips of their fingers, signifying hands that don't reach deep into their pockets. Parsimony helped preserve the old town - that and the scarcity of land. In a city hemmed in between harbour and mountains, you could only build high.
Between the canyon-like tenements, so close together that they seem to touch at the top, run little alleys called caruggi. Even ordinary Italians wouldn't have thought of venturing here a few years ago, but now they are full of people bustling in and out of small shops.
Genoa was never a destination for travellers set on ticking off an inventory of "important sights". It is Italy's capital of chaos, a spaghetti plate of narrow streets peppered with Renaissance palazzi and crammed onto a sliver of land between the harbour and the hills. The medieval Centro Storico, reckoned to be the biggest in Europe, is a thrilling place. Down in the honeycomb of yellowish tenement buildings, seven storeys high and slung with banners of laundry, you'll find pesto-perfumed trattorias, broom-cupboard bars, and quaint little workshops where craftspeople make everything from shoes to model ships while you watch - then sell them to you.
Worm your way down to the harbour, turn right into Sottoripa, and you'll realise what the city has been reminding you of. Sottoripa is not a street but a souk, complete with barrel-vaulted ceilings, hairy-jowled hawkers and seafood joints whose window displays writhe, because they're still alive. Genoa is western Europe's most Middle Eastern city, and has been since the crusades, when its trading galleys ruled the Med, shipping in Byzantine plunder and exotic people.
The razzle-dazzle of that era remains. It is evident in the sparkly Moorish mosaics that adorn the Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, the tiled Turkish Hamann in Via Bosco and the candied peaches and apricots that shine like rubies in the posh confectionery boutiques in Via Soziglia. When you open the door on baroque churches such as Chiesa del Gesu, with its twin altarpieces by Peter Paul Rubens, the sense of wonder you get is like lifting the lid on a sultan's treasure chest. Every inch of wall and ceiling glitters.
By the 1500s, Genoa had grown from a city-state into a superpower, bossed by dodgy doges who made their fortune as moneymen for the Spanish empire, and also produced its greatest treasure-hunter, the aforementioned Christopher Columbus. These ruling dukes spent their riches building show-off palaces on Via Garibaldi, where they compiled the world's first bourgeois art collections. Similar things were happening in Florence and Venice, but in Genoa the canvas was the city itself: fresco specialists such as Cambiaso and Castello literally painted the town in giddy reds and golds.
All this history colours the atmosphere today. With its furtive passageways and whiff of ancient intrigue, Genoa feels like the perfect backdrop for a revenge tragedy. And as Italy's busiest port, it still has its share of shifty characters loitering on shady corners. On a first visit you'll find it edgy, disorienting - and terrific for a weekend of serendipitous exploration. As Columbus himself could have told you, getting lost can be enormously rewarding.
Go there
Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) and Alitalia (www.alitalia.com) operate services from Dublin
Where to go, stay, eat and shop in Genoa
5 places to stay
Hotel Castello Miramare, Via Pegli 2, 00-39-010-69-69-690, www.castellomiramare.it.
For more than a century the elite have come to spend their holidays here. The hotel is close to numerous villas and prestigious residences such as Villa Gramatica and Villa Figlioli, or the splendid Villa Pallavicini with the Parco Negretto which hosts concerts in the summer. The hotel is housed in a recently renovated period building, and is a classic example of the liberty style. It has an excellent restaurant serving Ligurian and Genovese specialities.
Jolly Hotel Plaza, Via Martin Piaggio 11, 00-39-010-83-161, www.jollyhotels.it. Well-restored 19th-century architecture encloses an elegant and modern hotel. The hall and American bar have a welcoming atmosphere. The service is excellent, and the Villetta di Negro Restaurant offers a rich menu that celebrates the delicious local cuisine.
Hotel Cristoforo Colombo, Via di Porta Soprana 27, 00-39-010-251-3643, www.hotelcolombo.it. Located in the charming old city, it offers comfortable rooms.
Hotel Astoria, Piazza Brignole, 00-39-010-87-3316, www.hotelastoriagenova.it. Situated in a quiet square, it is popular with suits.
Hotel Brignole, Via del Corallo, 13 R, 00-39-010-561-651, www.hotelbrignole.com. The Hotel Brignole is situated in Genoa's commercial centre. It is close to Brignole station, the international exhibition centre, the stadium, and the aquarium. The hotel has been completely renovated, and offers very comfortable rooms.
5 places to eat
The province in which Genoa is situated is home to the Slow Food movement, so slacken your stays for lots of honest-to-goodness rustic grub. In the city's many family-run trattorias, you can rely on getting a mix-and-match choice of pasta with sauce. Locals tend to plump for pansotti - pot-bellied parcels stuffed with spinach and cheese and slathered in pesto, Liguria's signature sauce.
Trattoria da Maria, Vico Testadoro 14, 00-39-010-58-10-80. This trattoria is so authentic that even the locals consider it curious. Diners eat bowls of mama-made pesto at communal tables.
Café degli Specchi, Salita Pollaiuoli 43R, 0039-010-246-81-93. Genoa's literati frequented this art deco wonder since the 1920s. Scent of a Woman was filmed here.
Enoteca Sola, Carlo Barabino 120, 00-39-010-59-45-13. It offers stylish dining and traditional Genovese dishes complemented by an extensive wine list.
La Liguria in Cucina, Via del Portello 16R, 00-39-010-277-00-54. Feast in turn-of-the- century glamour in this atmospheric restaurant.
Take home a tub of pesto from La Tavola del Doge, a farmers' co-operative right in the tummy button of town on Piazza Matteotti.
5 places to go
Genoa's duomo, San Lorenzo, on Piazza San Lorenzo with its gaudy black-and-white Gothic facade houses a blue chalcedony plate reputed to have held the head of John the Baptist as it was served to Salome.
Marvel at Palazzo San Giorgio's frescos on Piazza Caricamento. Marco Polo used the time he served in its prison to write Il Milione.
Casa della Famiglia Colombo on Piazza Dante is the austere, supposed birthplace of Christopher Columbus.
Cimitero Monumentale di Staglieno in Lungo Bisagno (Bus No 34 from Stazione Principe) is the resting place of Constance Lloyd who Oscar Wilde married and later abandoned.
Spend an afternoon in chichi Portofino, 38km east of Genoa. Petrarch and Guy de Maupassant holidayed here and it's still frequented by the glitterati. There are hourly train services from Genoa's Principe and Brignole stations.
Paint the town
Nightlife here is a relaxed affair, pursued in the poky watering holes of the old quarter. Do as the locals do and order the tapas-style saucers of prosciutto, pasta salad or focaccia with your drinks. Perfect your bar-hopping technique and you may find you can skip dinner altogether!
Richest pickings are around Via del Molo, where, in summer, a cafe-bar called Rosa dei Venti has an outdoor swimming pool right beside the quay. As for those shifty street-corner stevedore types, steer clear of the zone west of Via San Luca and you should be safe enough.
Hit the shops
Genoa's shopping mirrors its topography; it goes downhill fast. Via Roma, at the top of town, is the place to make like Milano, with a wardrobe's worth of designer names. Not far away, around Via Garibaldi, you'll find intriguing curio shops and basement bazaars, and from there you can ferret down through the old town via lively Via Luccoli, pitted with gift emporiums and confetterie. By the time you reach Piazza Banchi, you've swapped the height of fashion for tat. Pavement traders peddle knock-off Gucci handbags and "ethnic" jewellery, and there's a quayside market piled with dangerous-smelling hams, sausages and cheese.