Genoa of sea, land, the Rolli palaces and greenery

'Let's go to Genoa with its deadly junctions' is a rather well-known verse from an album recorded by Francesco De Gregori back in 1992. Trips & Mirages is a hit song with an appropriate title but an invitation that shouldn't be accepted.

If you arrive by motorway, you enter the city across the new San Giorgio bridge, but Genoa is not a city you can drive around in comfort if you're not a local. Better to use the train, especially since from Piazza Principe station in just a few minutes you can reach Via Balbi, where traffic is limited thanks in part to Unesco restrictions.

This important city thoroughfare, which includes five of the forty-two sites in Genoa listed as World Heritage, was named in the 17th century after the family that created it and reserved all the residences along it for itself.

The family's fortunes began from the trade of silks, velvets, wool and merchandise, and later evolved into international banking. The wealth of the Balbi family ensured the possibility of public celebrations, first through this building project that would influence the future development of the city, and then with the elections of Francesco Maria and Costantino Balbi, respectively in 1730 and 1738, as doges of the Republic of Genoa.

Even today, a walk along Via Balbi is an encounter with a succession of patrician buildings, including some university sites and the Royal Palace.

From Via Balbi you can easily reach the sea, the true 'motor' of the Genoese economy. The short journey to the Old Port is mostly beneath one of the overpasses that allow cars to cross Genoa quickly. The numerous works of street art on the pylons and the palm trees that emerge from the promenade make the route more pleasant. We are welcomed to the port area by the fine trompe l'œil decorations so typical of Ligurian construction, which embellish the Renaissance façade of Palazzo San Giorgio, probably the most beautiful port authority building the world has ever known.

The Old Port that you come to, the real driving force behind the renewal of Genoa as a tourist location, is a large cultural and commercial complex with free access, built between the fabric of the historic centre and the skyscrapers of the modern city. The wind sculptures by Japanese artist Susumu Shingu and the metal composition of the Bigo , a crane-like panoramic lift by local architect Renzo Piano, are the most spectacular elements of Piazza delle Feste, mainly occupied by a tensile structure that covers the skating rink in winter, while in the summer it hosts shows and outdoor exhibitions.

The conversion of the Old Port and the Dock area, completed by the redevelopment of the Galata district and designed by Renzo Piani, was finished in 1992 for the occasion of the Expo and the celebrations for the fifth centenary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America. In every corner, Genoa reminds us of its history of sailors, boats, trade and above all the sea. Therefore, a place that showed the wonders of this element so characteristic of the city could not be missing. In short, an Aquarium was needed!

It may be an ecological choice, a personal interpretation of the UN 2030 Agenda goal: 'Life underwater – Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development'. It could also be to brush up on the classification of marine animal species, or Darwin's theory of evolution. Or, more probably, it will be a family outing to discover the virtual infinity of underwater shapes and colours, while the kids are amazed. Whatever your reason, a visit to one of the largest marine aquariums in Europe is a truly special experience.

The tour routes take you from the Mediterranean seabed to the coral reefs of the Caribbean Sea and the waters of the Antarctic, where the temperature drops below zero Celsius. Some tanks have particularly evocative shapes or settings, such as the penguin tank, with a backdrop of rocks, water and icebergs, while others are more tactile: the stingray tank is always crowded, because it seems unreal to be able to stroke them.

One the various thematic routes, dedicated to tropical forest, is located in an adjoining building. The Biosphere is a spherical structure in glass and steel in which a rainforest ecosystem has been recreated with tropical vegetation and feely roaming animals (butterflies, birds, amphibians and reptiles).

The Aquarium was inaugurated for the Columbus celebrations in 1992, on the 500th anniversary of the 'discovery' of America, and forms part of the Old Port in a space designed by Renzo Piano.

The Spinola family had numerous buildings in Genoa but the one housing the National Gallery was singled out by Unesco as it originally belonged to Francesco Grimaldi, the head of the Guelphs who conquered the Rock of Monaco, on the night of 8 January 1297, thus becoming the first Lord of Monaco and founding the dynasty that has ruled the principality up to the present day.

The building was given to the State in 1958 by Francesco and Paolo Spinola, but it was no ordinary donation: inside and out, the structure still retains the appearance of a sixteenth-eighteenth-century Genoese noble residence. The heritage of paintings viewed during the visit, such as the Ecce Homo by Antonello da Messina, confirm it as one of the largest public galleries in Genoa.

In the rooms on the first floor, it is interesting to note the use of variegated marble in trompe l'œil. The cladding on the original facade, which has not been preserved, seems to have been similarly inspired.

Continuing past the Palazzo Spinola National Gallery, along Via ai Quattro Canti di San Francesco, you come to Genoa's highest concentration of buildings, urban development and museums.

We enter the heart of what in 2006 Unesco listed as World Heritage under the name 'Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of the Palazzi dei Rolli', with 'Strade Nuova' [New Roads] including not only Strada Nuova but also Via Balbi, where this Genoese itinerary began. The exhibition itinerary of the Strada Nuova Museums covers Palazzo Rosso, Palazzo Bianco and Palazzo Doria Tursi, three masterpieces of Genoese architectural and residential culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that are located at the western end of the street. The three palaces were among the most prestigious in the Rolli system, that is, the stately buildings historically included in official lists, or 'Rolli', from which lots were drawn to welcome foreign guests during state visits to Genoa. The Rolli palaces, often in a lobby-courtyard-staircase-garden sequence and richly decorated, express a social and economic identity that inaugurated the urban architecture of the modern era in Europe.

From Strada Nuova, we return to the port area to pay tribute to the main church of Genoa and go back through the centuries. The walk is short but winding, past historic blocks and timeless squares.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century, it seems that Norman workers built the first order of the facade, with the black and white horizontal striped pattern often seen in the medieval churches of the Tyrrhenian area. Undoubtedly laid out over an earlier place of worship, the construction work lasted until the 14th century and beyond (as evidenced by the 15th-century row of mullioned windows in the façade), and was only completed with the dome in the late 16th century, leaving the front tower forever lacking its twin.

The history of the cathedral, and of other Ligurian churches, is retraced in the Diocesan Museum located beside it, going towards the Ducal Palace. In what was once the cathedral's crypt, the Treasure Musem of St Lawrence Cathedral preserves items of goldswork, altarpieces and liturgical vestments masterfully displayed, thanks to exhibitive choices made in 1956 by the architect Franco Albini.

There are hundreds of other places to see in Genoa, but you must also discover the less urbanSea of Genoa, taking the boat that sails past Mount Portofino to the Abbey of San Fruttuoso di Capodimonte, with the ancient mausoleum of the Doria family, the most important Genoese dynasty.

If we wish to continue exploring the Ligurian coastline and reach Quarto dei Mille or Nervi, it is certainly convenient to once more take the railway line along a stretch of coastline which, from Quarto, is a succession of seaside resorts.

Nervi had a story all of its own until 1926, when it became part of the city of Genoa. Its current status as a district has not, however, erased its historical individuality due to the series of parks and, more recently, a series of open-air museums and galleries that would be the envy of any other seaside resort.