Genoa hospitality

Genoa Cricket and Football Club are the oldest football club in Italy, founded in 1893 by British expatriates and originally only open to non Italians (Italians were grudgingly allowed in 1897). The Rossoblù (red and blues) won the first ever Italian championship in 1898 and racked up nine of them in the early decades, before falling behind the Milanese and Turin giants in the postwar era. Since then it has been a story of cycles, brilliant teams under Franco Scoglio in the 1990s, the dark years of Serie C and bankruptcy in the 2000s, the Preziosi era of survival in Serie A, and most recently the 777 Partners ownership saga. But the constant has been the Gradinata Nord, one of the most fervent ultras curve in Italy, and the Derby della Lanterna against Sampdoria, fellow tenants of the Marassi. The derby splits families, neighbourhoods and the city itself, with Genoa traditionally the working class, dockyard club and Samp the more bourgeois option, though the lines have blurred over time. The Marassi shakes when both teams play well, which has not happened simultaneously for some years. For visiting fans, Genoa offers something rare in modern Italian football: a properly historic club, a properly atmospheric ground, a properly grimy and beautiful port city, and a derby that still genuinely matters in a country where many rivalries have become tourist attractions. It is calcio with the romance intact, and the focaccia is unbeatable.

The Stadio Luigi Ferraris, universally known as the Marassi, is one of the great football grounds in Europe. Opened in 1911 and rebuilt for Italia '90 by the architect Vittorio Gregotti, it retains its four English'style square stands hard against the pitch, with no athletics track, no running room, and a capacity of around 36,500. The four corners are open to the sky, giving the ground a slightly old'fashioned, intimate feel that has all but disappeared elsewhere in Italy. The Gradinata Nord houses the Genoa ultras and is the spiritual home of the club; the opposite Gradinata Sud belongs to Sampdoria on their matchdays. Acoustics are spectacular, especially in winter when rain hammers the metal roofs. The neighbourhood around the ground (Marassi proper) is working class, run down and full of proper old bars serving farinata (chickpea pancake) and Moretti. There is no segregation lounge culture here; the matchday experience is street level and authentic.

Genoa is the great unloved beauty of Italy, a vertical city wedged between mountains and sea, with a vast medieval centre (the caruggi, narrow alleys often barely two metres wide), the largest historic port in the Mediterranean, and a faded grandeur that recalls when this was one of the four great Italian maritime republics. Wander the Via Garibaldi for its Renaissance palazzi (now museums, collectively the Rolli), eat focaccia di Recco and pesto trofie in any backstreet trattoria, ride the funicular up to Castelletto for views over the rooftops to the sea. The aquarium is one of Europe's biggest. Boccadasse, a fishing village tucked into the eastern suburbs, feels a thousand miles from the city centre. The Genovese accent is famously impenetrable even to other Italians, and the locals have a reputation for thriftiness that they wear with pride. The food is some of the best in Italy: pesto, focaccia, farinata, cima ripiena, and trofie.

Genoa Piazza Principe and Brignole are the two main stations, both connected to Milan (90 minutes by Frecciarossa) and Turin, with services along the coast to Pisa and Rome. Genoa Cristoforo Colombo airport handles some European flights and is 20 minutes from the centre by Volabus shuttle. The Marassi stadium is in the eastern part of the city, about three kilometres from Brignole station, reachable by bus (lines 12, 13, 48) or a 30 minute walk along Via Canevari. On derby days the police presence is heavy and access roads are controlled; arrive early. Stay near Piazza De Ferrari or in the caruggi for atmosphere, though the old town can feel edgy after dark in some streets. Use trains rather than driving; Genoa's road system was designed by sadists.