Designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano as part of the regeneration of the old port for the 1992 Columbus celebrations, the Aquarium of Genoa is the largest aquarium in Italy and one of the largest in Europe, displaying more than fifteen thousand animals from around six hundred species in seventy tanks spread across a long pier-built complex on the waterfront. The aquarium sits on a pier that juts out into the old port, with the main building shaped like a moored ship and a separate float.....

Designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano in 1992 as part of the celebrations marking the five hundredth anniversary of the voyage of Christopher Columbus, the Bigo is a striking glass-and-steel panoramic lift on the harbour of Genoa, raising visitors forty metres above the water for a sweeping view across the old port and the city beyond. The name and form recall the bigo, the heavy derrick once used to load and unload sailing ships on the dockside, a piece of working maritime equipment th.....

A glittering glass sphere balanced on a steel pier above the harbour of Genoa, the Biosphere was designed by Renzo Piano as part of the regeneration of the old port for the 2001 G8 summit. The transparent dome, twenty metres in diameter, is suspended just off the dockside and houses a tropical greenhouse, a small slice of equatorial forest set incongruously among the cranes and warehouses of the working port. The structure is supported by a single steel arm that holds the sphere out over the wa.....

A small stone building just inside the medieval Porta Soprana gate in the old town of Genoa, the so-called House of Christopher Columbus is traditionally identified as the childhood home of the famous explorer. The modest two-storey building, surrounded by the ruins of medieval walls and cloisters, sits on the spot where the family of the navigator is documented to have lived in the late fifteenth century. Historical records show that Columbus father, the wool weaver Domenico Colombo, rented a .....

Set on the central Piazza Matteotti in the heart of the old city of Genoa, the Palazzo Ducale was for several centuries the seat of the government of the Republic of Genoa and one of the most powerful civic buildings in the Mediterranean. The current building is the result of centuries of expansion and rebuilding over an original thirteenth-century core, and now houses a major exhibition centre, cultural foundation and small museum. The earliest structure on the site, the so-called Palazzo del .....

An immersive cinema experience in Genoa that combines film projection with physical effects including motion seats, wind, water spray, scent, and lighting to create a multi-sensory viewing environment. The concept extends beyond conventional 3D or IMAX presentation by engaging additional senses, synchronising environmental effects with on-screen action to heighten the audience's sense of physical involvement in the narrative. Screenings typically feature purpose-produced short films of 15 to 30.....

La Lanterna di Genova, the historic lighthouse of Genoa, stands 77 metres tall on the promontory of Capo di Faro at the western edge of the old port, making it one of the tallest traditional lighthouses in the world and the oldest continuously operating lighthouse in the Mediterranean. A lighthouse has occupied this site since at least 1128, with the current tower dating from a 1543 reconstruction following damage during fighting between Genoese factions and French forces. The two-section stone.....

The redeveloped old port of Genoa, transformed in 1992 by architect Renzo Piano for the Columbian Expo celebrating the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's first voyage. Piano, a Genoa native, converted the derelict medieval harbour into a mixed-use waterfront district that now serves as the city's principal leisure and cultural hub, anchored by the Acquario di Genova -- one of Europe's largest aquariums -- and surrounded by museums, restaurants, cinemas, an ice rink, and a public swimmin.....

Day trips to the small fishing village of Portofino are one of the most popular excursions for visitors to Genoa and provide an essential complement to any visit to the Ligurian capital. The village, which has been one of the most exclusive small resort destinations on the Italian Riviera since the early twentieth century, sits around thirty-five kilometres south-east of Genoa and is reached easily by train, by tour boat or by self-driven car. The village itself is one of the smallest principal.....

A group of around forty late Renaissance and early baroque aristocratic palaces along three streets in the historic centre of Genoa, the Rolli Palaces were inscribed onto the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2006 as one of the most architecturally distinguished concentrations of Italian aristocratic urban architecture surviving from the period of the Genoese Republic. The principal streets include Via Garibaldi, Via Balbi and Via Cairoli, with the central Via Garibaldi providing the most spectacula.....