Located on the shore of Mediterranean Sea, Genoa or Genova is famously known for its maritime heritages under its former glory, the Most Serene Republic of Genoa, and today the capital of Liguria and the biggest port of Italy as well as part of industrial hub together with Turin and Milan, and incredibly one of biggest well-preserved medieval city in Europe. I entered Genoa with no expectation, after I took the new metro line from the train station to the city center of Piazza De Ferrari, the first image of Genoa was really surprised me with the wide square of grand buildings and many cute red and green fountains, a mini Trafalgar square I would described, also the nearby Palazzo Ducale and the cathedral were also the same league of magnificent.

I continued my tour to the Via Garibaldi, which is a part of Strada Nuova, a grand road that built to make a new city area in 1550 and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. At first I saw the road, I really disappointed to see that the road was not a wide nice boulevard of stately mansions but a narrow lane and quite dark since the whole road had buildings blocking the sun, not a good place to stay in my opinion, but if compared with the medieval part of Genoa with full of complicated alleys, the road was really wide. Both sides of the road were cramped with palaces of Genoa's noble families rivaling each other by building more magnificent palaces

The palaces were beautiful, and built in the different styles, my favorite one was the Palazzo Lomellini Nicolosio with its lovely blue and white stucco and dreamy ceilings. The Palazzo Spinola was also great with great fresco while Palazzo Baldassare was simply elegant with its green tone. The biggest palace on Via Garibaldi is the Municipio or Palazzo Bianco which has nice gardens, and don't forget to admire the Palazzo Rosso which now turned to be an art museum. All in all, these palaces were just amazing and show us how wealthy of the owners and the economic power of the bygone Republic of Genoa.

In my opinion, all the palaces were deserved to be protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Sites as the representative of Genoa in world history, but why not included the entire great medieval city of Genoa? Why Italian Government decided to nominate just a small part of this city and use the whole medieval zone as buffer area. I did not know, or this was just another technique of nomination, to nominate just a small part of the city instead of large area which required more works and more money and maybe more fights with ICOMOS and UNESCO? Anyway, Genoa turned to be my surprised, and Via Garibaldi was a fine place to visit, not a must but just an extra place to fill your trip while looking for a nice pasta with Pesto alla Genovese in this La Superba.