The Most Beautiful Places in Genoa
5 places · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful places in Genoa are Portofino, Via Garibaldi, Genoa and San Fruttuoso Abbey. The list covers 5 places. Last updated 13 October 2026.
The province of Genoa covers the city and the coast on either side, where the Apennines drop almost straight into the Ligurian Sea. For centuries this was the seat of a merchant republic whose bankers and admirals reached across the Mediterranean, and its wealth went into palaces, churches and villas, while the steep shore kept fishing villages small and tightly packed. Grand city and wild promontory lie within sight of each other.
In Genoa itself, Via Garibaldi was laid out in the sixteenth century as a new street of aristocratic palaces, including Palazzo Rosso, Palazzo Bianco and Palazzo Tursi, and it forms the core of the World Heritage Site of the Strade Nuove and Palazzi dei Rolli. In the hills above the city, the Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno holds one of Europe's richest collections of nineteenth-century funerary sculpture, with marble figures carved in an intensely realist style.
East along the coast, the Portofino promontory is mostly a protected park of pine and holm oak. Portofino arranges its painted houses around a small horseshoe harbour, and on the far side of the headland the medieval Abbey of San Fruttuoso sits in a narrow cove reachable only on foot or by boat, once a burial place of the Doria family. In the water of its bay stands the bronze Christ of the Abyss, placed on the seabed in 1954. Palaces and harbours, sculpture above ground and below the sea, define the province.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Portofino | Most beautiful village | |
| 2 | Via Garibaldi, Genoa | Pedestrian street | |
| 3 | San Fruttuoso Abbey | Abbey | |
| 4 | Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno | Cemetery | |
| 5 | Christ of the Abyss | Sculpture |
01 Portofino
Italy · 25 km from Genoa44.304° N 9.207° E
Quintin Soloviev · CC BY 4.0 Portofino is a fishing village that became a byword for the Riviera without losing its shape. A tight horseshoe of tall, narrow houses painted ochre, rose, saffron and terracotta wraps around a small natural harbour at the tip of the Portofino promontory, with wooded slopes rising steeply behind.
Did you know? Elizabeth von Arnim's 1922 novel The Enchanted April grew out of her stay at Castello Brown and is credited with making Portofino fashionable.
02 Via Garibaldi, Genoa
Via Giuseppe Garibaldi
Italy · 0.3 km from Genoa44.411° N 8.933° E
Alex2015Genova · CC BY-SA 4.0 5 metres wide, lined on both sides with the town houses of the Genoese aristocracy, each trying to outdo its neighbour in marble, stucco and painted ceilings.
Did you know? Over the centuries the street was called Strada Maggiore, Strada Nuova and Via Aurea, and Madame de Staël nicknamed it the Street of Kings.
03 San Fruttuoso Abbey
Abbazia di San Fruttuoso
Italy · 22.1 km from Genoa44.316° N 9.175° E
Irin Acassi · CC BY-SA 4.0 San Fruttuoso Abbey was founded by Benedictine monks sometime between the eighth and tenth centuries, tucked into a cove on the Portofino promontory that is still reachable only by boat or on foot.
Did you know? The church's tenth-century dome shows Byzantine influence; it was later enclosed in an octagonal tower with typical Genoese stone decoration.
04 Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno
Cimitero monumentale di Staglieno
Italy · 2.7 km from Genoa44.430° N 8.950° E
Image by OudsidEscape from Pixabay Staglieno is less a graveyard than a city of marble built by nineteenth-century Genoa for its dead. Planned first by Carlo Barabino and, after his death in 1835, carried through by Giovanni Battista Resasco, it opened on 2 January 1851 on the slopes of the Bisagno valley.
Did you know? The architect Carlo Barabino died in the cholera epidemic of 1835, the year his plan for the cemetery was approved.
05 Christ of the Abyss
Italy · 22.3 km from Genoa44.313° N 9.175° E
Lucianoro1 · CC BY-SA 4.0 In 1947, Dario Gonzatti — one of the first Italians to dive with self-contained scuba gear — died during an expedition off this stretch of the Ligurian coast, between Camogli and Portofino.
Did you know? Although it was conceived as a memorial to Dario Gonzatti, the statue was later also dedicated to the memory of Duilio Marcante himself.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful places in Genoa?
- On our list, Portofino ranks first, followed by Via Garibaldi, Genoa and San Fruttuoso Abbey.
- How do you get to San Fruttuoso Abbey?
- There is no road to San Fruttuoso; the cove is reached by boat or along footpaths across the Portofino promontory.
- Why is Staglieno Cemetery famous?
- Staglieno is known for its vast collection of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century marble tomb sculptures, many highly realistic portraits of the dead and their mourners, making it an open-air museum of funerary art.
- What are the Strade Nuove in Genoa?
- They are streets, chiefly Via Garibaldi, laid out in the sixteenth century for Genoa's leading families, whose palaces were listed to host state guests; they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- What kinds of places are there to see in Genoa?
- In our collection, the places in Genoa are most often abbeys (1), cemeteries (1), sculptures (1) and streets (1).
- How many places are on this list in Genoa?
- The list covers 5 places.