genoa | Roaming the world

Camogli stands on Riviera de Levante that skirts the beautiful Gulf of Paradiso on the western side of a small peninsula close to Genoa. It’s a charming location that invites to explore its winding streets that start from the port and climb the hill. It looks like a small ex-fishing village turned resort with colorful buildings lining up its charming shore of pebble beaches. Its name may have come from “Casa de la Moglie”, local houses where captains used to leave their wives when they departed in long sails across the Ligurian Sea.

But the tiny town seemed to have a way larger role in history, around middle ages mooring in his harbor hundreds of Tall Ships and later hosting a contingent of the Napoleon’s fleet ready for the battle with the Brits. The main beach lined up with the colorful houses ends up dramatically with the tower of Castle della Dragonara, ruined and closed at the moment that adds to the charm of the town. On the other side of the castle is the harbor full of boats glittering in the sun.

On the other side of the peninsula, 20 minutes away of Camogli, Santa Margherita stretches along the Tigullio Gulf. Its look is more of a larger town than the village-esque looks of Camogli. Statues of Garibaldi and Columbus adorn its promenade, a charming relaxing walk of the “Pearl of Tigullio” with large yacht moored by the shore.

The entire Portofino peninsula was contested in history, Santa Margherita becaming at one point in the 18th century capital of the third canton under the French orders that included also Portofino village and its harbor.

By the thirteenth century, the small fishing village of Portofino became part of the Republic of Genoa. This move change the fortunes of the tiny forgotten village turning Portofino into a refuge for Genoese rich merchants, that brought wealth to the village, a tradition that persists even today.

But history’s fluidity made the village change hands between Florence, the local noble families and Genoa tying up Portofino in regional power dynamics. The climax came in 1814 when the small fishing village became the stage of bloody battles between English and Napoleonic troops, who were eventually driven out of the castle. The English victory incorporated Portofino into the Kingdom of Sardinia, along with the entire territory of Genoa till they all joined the kingdom of Italy.

Nowadays Portofino is a sleepy village, a retreat for the rich and famous. The road from Santa Margherita to Portofino, a 5 km stretch of narrow winding asphalt band is paced daily by crowds of tourists that enjoy the walk shared precariously by both humans and vehicles with no separation in between. Cars are parked occasionally on the side of the road avoiding to enter Portofino where parking is scarce. In town more upscale restaurants line up the charming harbor overlooked from the the top of the rock by Brown Castle that confer great views over the the colorful houses that embrace the harbor. Cruises sail at sunset from the harbor connecting the villages of the peninsula and Fruttoso Monastery located close to the promontory that has at its tip a romantic lighthouse.

When walking inside the mirrors’ hall of Genoa’s Palazzo Reale you feel a bit like in “Last Year in Marienbad”, where the images are reflected back to themselves, disorienting, multiplying like in the dream the movie wanted to portray. The museum and its remarkable art collection occupies a palace, that changed hands for about two centuries between the local patrician families Balbi and Durazzo till it came under the ownership of the House of Savoy that associated to it the Royal title.

Pupils in Palazzo Spinolla for an art lesson, Genoa, Italy

I found fascinating in all these palaces and art galleries in Bergamo, Torino and now in Genoa, the numerous groups of pupils from middle school and high school who came for an art lesson. They sat in circles on the floor while the teacher or a museum curator explained the paintings and the history or the religious facts associated with them. The explanations were sometimes way too long and the kids were drifting to their phones. But I could see that soon they put the phones back in their pockets and continue listening quietly, attentive to the explanations.

The ceiling of Santissima Annunziata del Vastato, Genoa, Italy

Squeezed between the mountains and the sea Genoa gives credit to Janus, the “two-faced” god, for its founding. The city even has a well, named Pozzo di Giano (Janus’ Well), built around 1600, that is said to be the exact spot where Genoa was born, a place where sailing lines and shrouds for the ships were made.

The fountain is pink for Giro d’Italia in Piazza Raffaele de Ferrari, Genoa, Italy

But Genoa’s history and its maritime prowess blessed the city with layers of civilization and a plethora of palaces, churches and squares that made Petrarch to name the city, La Superba.

And probably the most striking of all the city’s building is Genoa’s San Lorenzo Cathedral. Its facade and interior’s horizontal black and white marble stripes is a sign of the medieval nobility of the Republic of Genoa, only four families in Genoa having the privilege to decorate the buildings they founded in this manner, Doria, Spinola, Fieschi and Grimaldi. However the black and white stripes were also widespread in Tuscany, the color appearing on the cities’ coat of arms.

On the cathedral’s portico each column is decorated with sculpted motives. The interior shows the combination of the Gothic arches topped by Romanesque striped arches, proof of the mastery of the French artists who built it. It was consecrated as the cathedral of Genoa in 1118, more than a millennium ago. The financial success of the maritime commerce enabled the merchant families of Genoa to also establish one of the first universities in the world and the first credit bank in the world.

“Serge de Nîmes,” a blend of silk and wool used primarily for making sails and cover the merchandise on boats made its way to Genoa where the local traders, created a cotton version of it and dyed it blue using indigo traded from India. They marketed the new fabric as “blue of Genoa,” and soon the new fabric made its way across the Atlantic ocean following in the footstep – or better said sails – of Genoa’s native son Christopher Columbus. In the New World “Les Blue de Genes” ended up as fabric for a sort of very resistant pants for the working class, better known nowadays as … Blue Jeans.

Bruno Cataldo’s Khadine in Piazza Raffaele de Ferrari, Genoa, Italy

Geno’s inner city is made up of a fascinating maze of alleys named by the locals carrugi. The complex structure of these narrow streets, charming now for a stroll of discovery, helped once defend the city of the enemies that always seemed to come from the sea.

It is said that the carrugi were built to defend against the Moors’ invasions, complicating the advance of the enemy armies and allowing the Genoese to build barricades and setting up ambushes.

It was developed as a typical medieval labyrinth once developed in castles and fortresses or in the Arab medinas.

Nowadays the carrugi still are beaming with life with locals playing volleyball in tiny squares…

…small stores selling great food and migrants and prostitutes finding cheaper housing.

Roaming the world

FLYING MONK

Tag Archives: genoa

Portofino

Superba