Genoa Walking Tour: Finance, Trade and Nobility

Genoa built its fortune on the sea, turning a rugged, farmland-poor coastline into a trading empire that rivaled Venice. On this walking tour, you'll see how merchants and bankers transformed the city into a financial powerhouse. You'll also learn how this wealth bought some tradesmen their way into the nobility.

The tour starts at Palazzo San Giorgio, its golden façade honoring Christopher Columbus and Admiral Andrea Doria, a few steps from where Marco Polo was once imprisoned. From there, you'll pass through Piazza Banchi, the city's medieval Stock Exchange, and wind along Via San Luca, once the gateway for merchants and travelers arriving from France. Narrow lanes lead to Piazza delle Vigne, where a 900-year-old bell tower still stands untouched.

Along the way, you'll hear how Giovanni Vincenzo Imperiale's banking fortune bought his family a palace steps from the port, now home to a department store hiding a Baroque fountain by Filippo Parodi. You'll pass the San Lorenzo Cathedral, where an unexploded British bomb from 1941 remains on display, and the Church of Gesù, housing two Rubens masterpieces. The tour ends at Piazza De Ferrari, Genoa's modern commercial heart, where locals still toss coins into its bronze fountain for luck.

On this 90-minute tour, you'll have a chance to:

• Taste the traditional Genoese snack of focaccia dipped in cappuccino at a café on Piazza De Ferrari
• Step inside the Romanengo confectionery, serving candied fruits since 1780 from frescoed, antique interiors
• Spot the aedicula shrine bearing the Imperiale family's motto, command and obtain
• Learn how English engineer Dr. James Spensley founded Italy's first football club in 1893
• See the Ducal Palace's Grimaldina Tower, once used to hold political prisoners
• Discover why Piazza Caricamento's medieval seafront buildings were built directly over the water
• Find the funerary monument honoring Antonio Grimaldi, a Genoese hero of the 1400s

By the time you reach Piazza De Ferrari, you'll understand exactly how Genoa's merchant families turned trade into titles, and shaped a republic that rivaled kingdoms.