Genoa and the Castelletto esplanade: a view of the poetry of Genoa

Lost in the alleys of old Genoa sung about by De Andrè, described by Dickens, Paul Valery and other writers who over the centuries have attempted to capture the soul of the city, amidst palaces of the Rolli filled with opulent riches and recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, you go up to Piazza Portello, on the Castelletto lift, and from there you get to heaven!

“When I have made up my mind to go there, I will go to heaven in the Castelletto lift”

wrote the poet Giorgio Caproni. You step out of the lift and Genoa is right there, before your eyes, so complicated in its tangle of streets and ups and downs, never banal: on the horizon the port with its cranes and ships, an ideal backdrop for the slate roofs of the old city, like “a petrified sea in a storm” as the verses written by another great 20th-century Ligurian poet, Camillo Sbarbaro, put it.

Spianata, as the Genoese call it, is the most romantic stage for young couples in love: there you can exchange passionate kisses in the light of the sunset, listen to a romantic song while embracing your love or daydream with your eyes turned towards the blue sea.

Genoese people go to Spianata Castelletto to admire a mysterious and inextricable city: from above, however, everything appears more comprehensible and its beauty becomes clearer. The panorama sweeps from East to West, the Lighthouse, the symbol of the Genoa, can almost be touched with a finger, and the villas of the Albaro district light up pink at sunset.

Boccadasse, an ancient fishing village in the middle of the city, can barely be glimpsed and seems to beckon you to take a break from the hustle and bustle and visit its romantic restaurants on the famous pebble beach.