Speaking of Genoa without mentioning pesto is practically impossible.

Behind Genoa’s austere façades and seventeenth-century portals lies a little-known but immensely valuable green heritage: its historic gardens — true urban oases that tell stories of centuries of history, taste and culture.

The queen of Ligurian tables, focaccia genovese — or fugassa in local dialect — is far more than just food: it’s a daily ritual for the people of Genoa, eaten in the morning dipped in cappuccino, as a mid-morning snack, or in the evening as a light bite.

The Palazzi dei Rolli are the ancient patrician residences of Genoa, built between the 16th and 17th centuries by the most prominent families of the Republic of Genoa.

Genoa is known as a city of the sea, of trade and of noble palaces, but there is another, equally fascinating side that often surprises those visiting for the first time: that of its medieval churches.

If there is one place every visitor to Genoa should see, it is the Old Port — not only because it is where the city meets the sea, but because here history and modernity intertwine in a unique mosaic of architecture, culture and leisure.