Genova

(Genoa) Liguria Italy

:::::::::::Distance 5 from Ventimiglia 165 km::::::::::

Surrounded by lush hills and wafted by the tang of the sea Perhaps it's the feeling of being freed from the folds of the Maritime Alps, or just the Alice-in-Wonderland sense of passing through a door (in keeping with the theory that "Genova" derives from "janua", meaning "door") into another world, but the sudden expanse of sea and sky bounded by the far horizon and the shimmering green of distant promontories have always filled me with bubbling glee and exhilaration on bouncing down from the motorway toll-gate towards the first of the city's famous landmarks, La Lanterna, the lighthouse that guards the western entrance to the old port. "The most beautiful city in the world, without exception" (Wagner) Genova is situated approximately 150 kilometers south of Milan, at the top of the arc formed by the Gulf that is washed by the blue and emerald-green (though polluted) waters of the Ligurian Sea.

It is the meeting point of the western Riviera di Ponente, which stretches as far as the French border at Menton and the eastern Riviera di Levante which ends at the naval base of La Spezia. By far the best way to get an overall view of the city and the impressive, though hardly pretty, might of the industrial port with its enormous tankers and the equally impressive, and much prettier, might of the fabulous yachts and liners, is by boat. But the next best way is to drive along the "sopraelevata" from which you can admire from on high the quays on the right and the palaces on the left. Genova is known as La Superba (the Proud), and though she is much maligned because of industrial pollution and wanton urban development, she is still a heady city and has lost none of the regality that earned her this nickname; like some people, the more intimately you get to know her, the more fascinating she becomes. Wagner in fact wrote that "Genova is the most beautiful city in the world, without exception", and her lure was felt by such great men as Byron, Shelley, Lamartine, Paul Valery who composed some of his most famous poems there, and Verdi who spent the last years of his life in Palazzo Doria. by Susan Clare First published in "The Informer" 1996, the magazine you need to understand Italy

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