At nine o’clock on a Saturday morning in July, as the sun begins to warm the stones of Vico dei Notari, a small group gathers in front of a doorway that looks like a thousand others. No sign, no tourist placard. Just a metal door painted gray, set into a wall that has seen centuries pass. Those who have lived in Genoa their whole lives walk past it without looking. Yet behind that door begins another world: steps descending into darkness, the air growing cooler with every meter, the city’s noise fading gradually like a radio being turned down.
Genoa, it is often said, is a vertical city: you climb the creuze, descend the staircases, take the funicular to gain height above the rooftops. But there is a verticality that goes in the opposite direction, downward, and it is perhaps the most surprising. Beneath the maze of caruggi, beneath the foundations of the Palazzi dei Rolli, beneath the asphalt that tourists tread on their way to Via Garibaldi, there exists an entire hidden city made of cisterns, tunnels, and shelters. An urban double bottom that tells, perhaps better than the surface, what it meant to live here over the centuries: defending oneself from siege, conserving water, surviving bombardments.
Air raid shelters: when the caruggi became a bunker
During World War II, Genoa was one of the most heavily bombed Italian cities by Allied forces: the port, shipyards, and IlVA and Ansaldo factories made it a strategic target of primary importance. To protect the population, the historic center and several neighborhoods were equipped with a capillary network of air raid shelters, often carved from the cellars of buildings or excavated directly into the rock beneath the old city. Today some of these spaces have been recovered and made visitable thanks to the work of volunteer associations and local history enthusiasts, who oversee their periodic opening with guided visits.
Descending into one of these shelters means finding yourself suddenly in another era: the walls still bear painted inscriptions with ventilation directions, the concrete benches where families waited for the alarm to end, in some cases even graffiti left by those who spent their longest nights there. There is nothing scenographic or reconstructed: it is all authentic, with that patina of humidity and dust that no scenography could imitate. The guides who lead these tours — often local historians or members of Genoese historical research associations — recount anecdotes that rarely find their way into textbooks: the name of the siren that warned of danger, the route families from the neighborhood took running to reach the nearest entrance, daily life suspended between fear and habit.
The cisterns: water beneath the medieval city
Even before the war shelters, beneath the historic center there developed a hydraulic system made of cisterns carved into the rock to collect and preserve rainwater — a vital necessity for a densely packed city, squeezed between sea and mountains, where water supply was a crucial problem for centuries. Some of these cisterns, dating back to the medieval period, are still found beneath historic buildings in the caruggi, often incorporated into the cellars of palaces that today house private residences, shops, or small museums.
What strikes you about these spaces is not so much their size — they are intimate environments, sometimes low, that force you to walk hunched over — but their silent and continuous function: for centuries they guaranteed the survival of entire neighborhoods, in a time when running water was a luxury for few. Walking beneath these vaults carved into stone, still filled with cool humidity even in the hottest months, gives a physical sense of how complex and ingenious medieval Genoa was, a merchant city that had to solve supply problems on its own without relying on a generous agricultural hinterland.
The tunnels and passages between the Palazzi dei Rolli
Less known, but equally fascinating, are the tunnels and underground passages that once connected some of the great palaces of the historic center, those we now know as the Palazzi dei Rolli, a UNESCO World Heritage site along with the Strade Nuove. These passages served to ensure private communications between allied families, escape routes in case of conflicts between rival factions, or simply practical connections between warehouses and noble residences. Not all are accessible today — many are bricked up, others incorporated into private cellars — but some sections have been recovered and are included in thematic guided tours organized by local cultural associations.
Sailko, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
What makes these tunnels particularly interesting is the contrast: above, the palaces displayed painted facades, frescoes, monumental staircases designed to astound illustrious guests; below, the same merchant aristocracy built practical escape routes, almost clandestine, for times when splendor served no purpose. It is a reminder of how Genoa, behind the elegance of the Rolli, was also a city of calculation, prudence, and political survival.
“There is perhaps no city in Italy that makes a more vivid impression on travelers at first sight than Genoa.”
— Charles Dickens, Pictures from Italy, 1846
Why almost nobody goes there
The main reason these places remain unknown even to many Genoese is simple: there is no tourist signage, and access points are often anonymous doors without prominent signs, managed by volunteer associations that open only on specific occasions or by reservation. There is no entrance ticket to buy at a counter like in a traditional museum: you need to know which association to contact, which dates are available, and book in advance. It is a form of tourism that requires a minimum of planning, and this — paradoxically — is its greatest merit.
There is also a psychological factor: the idea of underground spaces, of bunkers, evokes in many a sense of unease, almost a violation of a space that, for those who lived through the war, was a place of pure fear. It is not a path that is “Instagram-worthy” in the conventional sense: there are no picturesque postcard views, but spaces that demand silence, attention, and a little historical imagination. Those seeking only the perfect photo will probably get bored; those seeking to understand what it truly means to inhabit Genoa over the centuries, however, will emerge with a completely different perspective on the city.
How to organize your visit
Most of the routes in underground Genoa are managed by local cultural volunteer associations, which organize periodic openings — often on weekends — with expert guides who accompany small groups. It is essential to book in advance: places are limited, both for safety reasons and because the spaces themselves do not allow large crowds. We recommend always checking times and availability directly with the organizing associations, as openings may vary seasonally.
Dress comfortably: some sections require walking bent over, others have irregular steps and slippery surfaces due to humidity. A light jacket is useful even in summer, as the temperature underground remains cool regardless of the season — actually a relief in the hottest months of July and August, when the caruggi above become a stone and sun furnace. Wear closed shoes, avoid sandals, and if you suffer from claustrophobia, check in advance on the characteristics of the specific route: some sections are wider, others decidedly narrower.
The best time to plan your visit is the morning, when groups are generally smaller and the city above is still quiet: emerging from the underground and finding yourself in the caruggi still half-empty, with light filtering obliquely between the tall buildings, is one of the most intense sensations that Genoa can give to those who explore it with genuine curiosity.
Underground as a mirror of the city
There is something profoundly Genoese in this underground story: a city that never had space to expand horizontally, cramped as it is between the sea and the mountains, has always had to invent vertical solutions. Upward, with the extremely tall houses of the caruggi that steal light from the sky. Downward, with cisterns, tunnels, and shelters that responded to different needs but to the same logic: use every cubic meter available, even that which is not seen.
Visiting these places means understanding Genoa in a dimension that postcards do not show: not only the city of frescoed palaces and elegant squares, but also that of daily survival, of shared fear during bombing raids, of the practical ingenuity necessary to manage water in a stingy territory. It is a less photographed Genoa but no less real — indeed, perhaps more real precisely because it is less exposed.
Where to stay to explore Genoa at your own pace
Those who truly want to venture into these routes, often organized by reservation with specific time slots, benefit greatly from staying right in the heart of the historic center, just steps away from the entrances to the shelters and cisterns. The Genovese residences on genovabb.it in the caruggi allow you to move on foot from one appointment to the next, without worrying about parking or driving in an area where cars cannot enter anyway. Staying here also means experiencing the contrast we mentioned: returning in the evening to a historic palace, perhaps with frescoed ceilings, knowing that just below, only a few meters down, another Genoa unfolds made of bare stone and buried history.
If this story has sparked your curiosity, the advice is simple: don’t stop at the surface. Genoa reveals itself fully only to those willing to look beyond the first impression, to descend a few more steps, to ask one more question to the guide accompanying you. Our city guide can help you build an itinerary that connects the above and the below, the Palazzo dei Rolli and their forgotten tunnels, the bright caruggi and the dark cisterns that have supported them for centuries.
If underground Genoa is calling you, we are here: book your stay in one of our residences in the heart of the old town, and let the historic center itself — with everything it hides beneath your feet — become your base for exploring the Superba to its depths, literally.
