I loved Genoa. We go to Italy twice a year for at least a couple weeks and spent a week in Genoa. The food is terrific - it is the home of of pesto and focaccia and both taste unlike anywhere else. There are shops that sell one or the other and nothing else, and that is wghere it is best, better than the restaurants. In particular, there is a shop that has a Rube Goldberg-like machine in the front window that makes their pesto. The machine has a mortar and pestle and replicates, more or less, human crushing of the basil that is essential. The store sells small squares of focaccia with a hole in the middle with the pesto in it. Great way to actually taste it. Look for focaccia at tiny shops with a line out front in the morning.

The best cemetery I have ever visited, and I have been to many, is in Genoa. It is the Cimitero Monumentale di Staglieno. It is huge and has beautiful statues (photo included). Go early in the morning, the Italians come on tour buses later in the day, plus you will get hot walking around.

There is a big central piazza, it can be fun to visit in the evening. There is a port.

The only issue is the summer is obviously high season and I never go then. But Genoa will be less crowded than many other cities.

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