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GENERAL INFORMATION |
  
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| Genoa is a town that you have to know how to love. Getting to known it and making it your own are not easy, but they are not impossible either: just as in love you need perseverance and a strong push from within. There can be no half measures. Genoa is a town that has always amazed people with its beauty and richness. Just consider what Gustave Flaubert wrote to a friend in 1845.... "I saw a beautiful street, the Via Aurelia, and now I am in a beautiful town, a really beautiful town, Genoa. I walk on marble, everything is made of marble: stairs, balconies, palaces". Many visitors have described it in detail, and many of these with enthusiasm. And some, in fact very few, have followed the lead of Dante who was severely critical: "Sea without fish, hills without wood, men without honour, women without shame"; they have added their voices to that of Montesquieu who, in his poem "Adieu Genes", defines it as "detestable and boring". You either love Genoa or you hate it, no one can remain indifferent. Not is it rare for people not to like the town at the first impact, but then to love it deeply once they appreciate its spirit. In fact in 1843 Charles Dickens wrote in Pictures from Italy: "That day I would never have believed that the time would come when I would be attracted even by the stones of Genoa's streets, and that I would think of that town with affection as a place in which I had spent many hours in peace and happiness". Even today Genoa arouses contrasting feelings. This is also due to the fact that it often presents itself in contradictory terms. As a Mediterranean port that has always been open to trade with all the countries on its shores, so that it has assimilated many of their customs and words. And as a city of merchants and bankers, to the extent that it is unanimously recognized as the most English town in Italy.
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