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142km (88 miles) S of Milan, 501km (311 miles) N of Rome, 194km (120
miles) E of Nice
With its dizzying mix of the old and the new, of sophistication and
squalor, Genoa (Genova) is as multilayered as the hills it clings to. It
was and is, first and foremost, a port city: an important maritime
center for the Roman Empire, boyhood home of Christopher Columbus (whose
much-restored house still stands near a section of the medieval walls),
and, fueled by seafaring commerce that stretched all the way to the
Middle East, one of the largest and wealthiest cities of Renaissance
Europe.
Genoa began as a port of the ancient Ligurian people at least by the 6th
century B.C., when it traded with the Greeks and Phoenicians. Genoa
threw in its lot with Rome against Carthage and was destroyed for its
loyalty in 205 B.C., but Rome rebuilt it. By the early Middle Ages,
Genoa had become a formidable maritime power, conquering the surrounding
coast and the mighty outlying islands of Corsica and Sardinia. Though
all Mediterranean ports competed, the rivalry was particularly strident
between neighbors Genoa and Pisa. After countless battles, Genoa soundly
trounced its enemies at Meloria in 1284 (Pisa would never truly
recover), after which Genoa's growth knew few bounds. She established
colonies throughout North Africa and the Middle East, and made massive
gains during the Crusades. With bigger success came new, bigger rivals,
and Genoa locked commercial and military horns with Venice, which took
the upper hand in 1380 with a naval victory at Chioggia. Though La
Superba -- "The Superb," a proud nickname given the city by Petrarch
himself in 1358 -- nurtured its own powerful families, after Chioggia
the city's power was broken, and Genoa was increasingly controlled by a
series of French and Milanese kings and potentates.
In 1528, Genoese naval hero Andrea Doria led an insurrection that
reestablished local control, but the self-made government quickly turned
tyrannical. Genoa's days at the top of the heap were ending. The locus
of sea trade was rapidly shifting to Spain and eventually to its
American colonies, a trend exemplified by Genoa's most famous native
son, Christopher Columbus, who had to travel to Spain to find the
financial backing for his voyage of exploration across the Atlantic. By
1684, the French had reconquered the city, and soon after the Austrians
took control until 1746, followed by Napoleon in 1767. Austria tried
again, failed, and Genoa set up a Ligurian Republic in 1802, but it was
quickly subsumed into Piedmont, which became a French province.
Genoa's new links with Piedmont made its future, though, as it was
deeply embroiled from early on in the Risorgimento, the 19th-century
Italian unification movement. In simplest terms, the Risorgimento was
built on a four-sided foundation: a king (Vittorio Emanuele II), a
general (Giuseppe Garibaldi), a political leader (Camillo Cavour), and a
political philosopher (Giuseppe Mazzini). Mazzini was Genoese born and
bred, and in 1860, Garibaldi staged his single huge military push from
this port city, the embarkation of the "Thousand" red-shirt soldiers who
sailed to conquer and otherwise successfully bring all of the peninsula
into the new Kingdom of Italy. In World War II the Allies bombed the
heck out of this major port, but Genoa responded by rebuilding and
expanding rapidly in the following decades, becoming once again a major
Mediterranean port.
It's easy to capture glimpses of these former glory days on the narrow
lanes and dank alleys of Genoa's portside Old Town, where
treasure-filled palaces and fine marble churches stand next to
laundry-draped tenements and brothels. In fact, life within the old
medieval walls doesn't seem to have changed since the days when Genovese
ships set sail to launch raids on the Venetians, crusaders embarked for
the Holy Land, and Garibaldi shipped out to invade Sicily in the
19th-century struggle to unify Italy. The other Genoa, the modern city
that stretches for miles along the coast and climbs the hills, is a city
of international business, peaceful parks, and breezy belvederes from
which you can enjoy fine views of this dingy yet colorful metropolis and
the sea that continues to define its identity.
Genoa still bears some public-relations scars from when it hosted the
ill-fated G8 summit of 2001. After sweeping undesirables by the
truckload into local prisons and welding 3.6m (12-ft.) iron barricades
across the streets to seal off the historic center, Genoa was still
deemed too dicey for the world leaders' safety, so the conferences were
moved into luxury ships docked at the port. Meanwhile, the international
protesters that swarm such high-level economics meetings swelled to as
many as 80,000. They clashed with the 15,000 police and military forces,
and things got ugly: Full rioting broke out, culminating in the police
shooting and killing one Italian protester who was hefting a fire
extinguisher and waving it toward a police truck.
Be prepared to deal with what is probably the seediest port city in
Italy. Though the city has made an impressive effort in recent years to
clean up the legendary drug use in its historic center, and popular
restaurants and wine bars have taken over previously shady piazzas,
thieves, prostitutes and other unsavory characters still exist in the
back alleys, all night and all day long. Stick to the major, well-lit
streets and you will still uncover Genoa's gritty and authentic charm. |
