Learn about Genoa before you visit. On the way to a new place, they say that anticipation can be just as good as the trip itself. After my first visit to Egypt in 2019, I developed a pretty involved method to savour that pre-trip excitement. Like most people I love to scour TripAdvisor, ask friends for tips, and save cool-looking cafes on Google Maps.
Somehow or other I stumbled on another way to immerse myself in a place before I’m there. Even though I don’t necessarily remember each line or each fact, it adds a layer of depth to my travels that has been pretty satisfying. And it becomes a sort of quest for me to accomplish prior to getting to a place (or if I time it right, whilst I’m there — like reading Death on the Nile by the pool in Cairo). By writing it down here, I can extend that enjoyment of the trip even more afterwards.
So as an example, here is how I’ve prepared to explore the city by taking some time to learn about Genoa. I was there for only 3 nights, but I did about a month worth of reading and immersion beforehand. Does it sound like going to school? Maybe for some people it is. But for me it’s just a fun way to get to know a place before I go. And I have to say that reading travelogues beforehand is one of the most fascinating parts of the whole endeavour. To see a place in the 19th century, and then compare those echoes to what still exists today.. Now that’s pretty cool.
Books to help you learn about Genoa
- Genoa, ‘La Superba’: The Rise and Fall of a Merchant Pirate Superpower by Dr Nicholas Watson. I started with this casual history to learn about Genoa. It was an easy read and helped me to know the basics of the city. I don’t usually read pure history prior to a trip, but this one has made me think it’s a good thing to add to any pre-travel repertoire.
- La Superba by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer. A novel (originally written in Dutch) featuring Genoa. I must say, if I hadn’t read the above history first, I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate the atmosphere the author injects into this novel about immigration, emigration and how diverse people make up a city. Reading it in the original Dutch was a pretty cool challenge (I probably understood 50% of it on my own… but that’s what ebooks and digital dictionaries are for). I did a lot of reading afterwards about Pfeijffer and how he has moved to Genoa in real life and written quite a few books centred around the area. You can get the English translation here.
- The Botticelli Secret by Marina Fiorato. A novel with a pitstop in Genoa that seemed a fun choice after my trudge through the above. I read it throughout my trip. I really liked this book! Others described it as a kind of historical fiction Da Vinci Code and I agree, but from a sassy female perspective.
Travelogues to learn about Genoa
A fascinating way to look into a place and see how it has morphed over the centuries is to read travel histories. It just so happens that I stumbled on some by two very famous authors (below). Comparing their impressions of a place is one of my favourite ways to prep for travel. Genoa is a fairly minor city in the scheme of things, but travelers around Europe frequently stopped there as it was a major port for steamers coming from the UK and the US.
- Tobias Smollett wrote a series of letters about his trip to Italy in 1765, including one about his impressions of Genoa.
- Pictures From Italy is Charles Dickens’s travel writing about his trip to Italy, written in 1846, and it features a chapter on Genoa.
- Italian Hours is an anthology of essays that Henry James wrote and published in 1909 after forty years of traveling around Italy, and it too features Genoa. I look forward to reading this whole book — he has some really astute observations, as an American expat who lived in Europe for many years, about what it means to be a foreigner in a new land and how traveling can be both very impactful and also very superficial.
- I also like reading travelogues from some ‘unknowns’ — people who disappeared into history but left their insights on travel. This one, entitled Trip to the Sunny South by an author known simply as L.S.D. (although he seems pretty clear-sighted in his descriptions) has a passage on Genoa.
English Language Authors in Genoa
I went on a fantastic walking food tour on my first full day in Genoa. The tour guide sent me a list of a myriad of other famous authors who spent time in Genoa. I bet a lot of these have also written pieces on Genoa:
- Tobias Smollett, 1765
- Lord Byron, 1822-23
- Mary Shelley
- Leigh Hunt
- Charles Edwards Lester
- Charles Dickens, 1844-45
- Margaret Fuller, 1847
- George Elliot
- Nathaniel Hawthorne 1858
- Herman Melville, 1857
- William Dean Howells, 1867
- Mark Twain, 1869
- Henry James, 1877
- Oscar Wilde, 1878
- Thomas Hardy, 1887
Music and Podcasts to learn about Genoa
- Fabrizio de André’s Via del Campo and La Città Vecchia are excellent examples of this Genoese artist’s portrayal of his city.
- On the plane back, I listened to this tourist overview of Genoa and Liguria from Amateur Traveler. This would have been a better listen as one of the first things that I did to learn about Genoa.
- This podcast was an interesting look into what a pair of Americans think about Genoa after a trip to discover if they’d want to live there. Listen to it after your trip. I actually really liked listening to a sort of debrief of a tourists’ trip and would love to find more podcasts like this. I find most travels are just about travel or the area in general — less so someone’s impressions / specific experience.
Genoa and the Movies
There is one movie I found that is rooted in Genoa, and that’s the 1986 Roman Polanski film Pirates. It turns out that the ship in that film is an actual full-size pirate ship replica which cost millions to build. Although Pirates was filmed in Tunisia, the ship itself is now in Genoa. We were able to visit it!
Historic hotels in Genoa
Staying in a historic or special hotel also adds an interesting layer to my travels. Sometimes I pick places purely for their utility but often I get satisfaction from staying somewhere with a level of history (or the oppsoite… trendiness) to it. I ended up choosing to stay at the Grand Savoia Hotel from 1897 — one of two historic hotels still prominent in the city.
The other one, the Hotel Bristol Palace, was built in 1905.
But I ended up going with the former based on its location (right across from the station and two museums we wanted to visit) and the fact that there was a pirate playground inside the hotel. Since my son is literally obsessed with pirates, this seemed like a pretty clear sign that this was the place to stay. Their concierge was also super helpful in arranging things for the room and connecting us to a trustworthy babysitter.
Historic hotels can be so cool, especially when they’re modernised well. This one was pretty decent. It felt more like a 4 star than a 5 star, but that’s ok, for the price (we paid 140eur/night in low season). It had interesting features to it like the hidden tunnel in the basement that, when open in the 1930s, could take guests straight to the train station platform without having to step outside the hotel.
Preparing for Genoa with a dose of history
I love preparing for trips this way. This time around I was probably more thorough than usual because it’s been so long since I last traveled. I also had a full month beforehand without much going on to read up on the area. By the time I went on a walking food tour (which I recommend — you can find it here), the tour guide didn’t really tell me much I hadn’t already read! But that’s fine. The actual act of exploring a place is a feeling you can’t ever replicate via books. I’m thinking about where to go next!
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