It rivals Florence for Renaissance-era palaces, Venice for medieval alleyways and Naples for its prime Mediterranean position. It’s a city that lives its history instead of calcifying it into museums; where takeaways sell farinata crepes (the recipe for which hasn’t changed in centuries), shops are slathered in frescoes, and antique public lifts whisk you through the centuries, picking you up in La Belle Époque and dropping you in the Renaissance.

So why isn’t Genoa better known? After all, 200 years ago it was a prime stop on the Grand Tour. Everyone from Charles Dickens to Mark Twain passed through; Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelley set up home nearby. But fierce post-war industrialisation and urban planning knocked Genoa’s status as a cultural hub on the head. Today, its port eclipses almost everything else.