« Back to Genoa - Genova
North Of San Lorenzo
The district around the Cattedrale di San Lorenzo has changed dramatically in the last few years, with an influx of art shops and trendy fashion outlets along the main Via San Lorenzo. One block north, just off Piazza San Lorenzo, a narrow winding alley, Vico del Filo , doglegs its way crazily westwards down to Piazza Caricamento on the portside; a local insult for one who is particularly dim is to describe them as being “as stupid as the Vico del Filo”. An unnamed lane leads north from San Lorenzo through tiny Piazza Invrea - shamed by having had a 1960s concrete eyesore cemented onto the side of a medieval residence - to the rather swanky little shopping square of Campetto and adjacent Via degli Orefici , “Street of the Goldsmiths”. Unlike the generic, machine-produced gold jewellery found in Florence, much of what is on offer in Genoa is still prefabricated by hand at upper-floor workshops in the area of Campetto, sold in shops such as L’Oro degli Sforza on the square at relatively inexpensive prices. Linked to Campetto is genteel Piazza Soziglia , with a good mixture of bars and places to eat, among them Klainguti , one of Genoa’s oldest coffee-houses . From here Via Luccoli heads north, continuing the with glitzy boutiques and design outlets galore, while a few steps to the west is Piazza Lavagna , home to Genoa’s thriving Mercato dei Pulci, the regular flea market. Via Garibaldi, and the sixteenth-century palazzi of Genoa’s mercantile dynasties, is a short stroll north .
A little easterly of Campetto and Piazza Soziglia is the city’s prettiest small square, Piazza San Matteo . This lay in the territory of the Doria family, who went one step further than merely striping the twelfth-century church of San Matteo in black and white: they ordered elaborate testimonials to the family’s worthiness to be carved on the deception of the church and their adjoining palaces. Andrea Doria, the most illustrious of the clan, lived in the palace on the left corner of the square (the other palaces on the square were home to the rest of the family) before he built his lavish palace down on the waterfront . He is now buried in the crypt, which the caretaker will open for you. Peek in too at the pretty little cloister adjoining the church.
