Most people arrive in Genoa by cruise ship, take a quick look at the port, and wonder what to do next.
Here’s the honest answer: a lot more than you think.
Genoa doesn’t sell itself the way Rome or Florence does. It doesn’t need to. This is a city that has been quietly extraordinary for a thousand years, and it carries that history with the confidence of someone who knows they don’t need to shout about it.
That is why Genoa is one of Italy’s most underrated cities.
It was once the capital of one of the most powerful maritime republics in the medieval world. A naval and commercial force that rivalled Venice, traded across the Mediterranean, and bankrolled European monarchies. Christopher Columbus was born here, in a city that was already used to launching people toward the unknown. The wealth that flowed through Genoa built its famous caruggi: a labyrinthine network of narrow medieval alleyways that twist and climb through the old city, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site alongside the extraordinary Palazzi dei Rolli, a collection of Renaissance and Baroque palaces so significant they were once used to host visiting kings and heads of state on a rotating basis.
Yes, the city had an official rota for housing royalty. That’s the kind of place Genoa is.
Walking through the caruggi today, you move between centuries without warning. A Baroque church doorway appears at the end of a shadowy alley. A goldsmith’s workshop sits next to a family trattoria that has been there for three generations. Street art covers walls metres away from a 16th-century marble fountain. It’s chaotic, layered, and completely alive.
Then… the food! Genoese cuisine is fiercely local and deeply proud. Pesto was invented here! Not the spinach one, the real kind, made with Ligurian basil, pine nuts, Parmigiano, Pecorino and olive oil, ground in a marble mortar.
Focaccia genovese is a daily ritual for locals: eaten at breakfast with a cappuccino, at midday as a snack, at any hour really, with a texture that’s simultaneously crisp and pillowy and unlike anything called focaccia elsewhere in Italy. And there is Farinata a thin, golden chickpea pancake baked in a wood fired oven… it is another street food staple that visitors rarely forget.
If these are not made Genoa thoroughly won you over, the road opens up along the Ligurian coastline and Portofino comes into view.
If Genoa is the real thing, working heart of Liguria, Portofino is its most glamorous dream. Tucked into a natural harbour that seems almost designed by a set decorator, this tiny former fishing village has been drawing royalty, artists, and discerning travellers since the 19th century. The pastel-coloured houses stacked around the marina, the superyachts bobbing gently on turquoise water, the famous Piazzetta where the whole village seems to converge at golden hour. It’s the kind of place that feels almost too beautiful to be real… and yet it is.
The best way to arrive? By boat, without question. Sailing along the Ligurian coast, watching the cliffs and coves pass by, is a perspective that no road can offer. It also frames Portofino perfectly as you round the headland and the harbour reveals itself.
Combining both in one day is easier than you think.
Our Genoa & Portofino Guided Shore Excursion is built around exactly this experience.
Whether you’re docking for the day or planning ahead, this stretch of coastline genuinely rewards the effort. Genoa will surprise you. Portofino will stay with you.
→ Check availability and book your spot here.
