The first weekend of March wraps Genoa in a particular atmosphere: the still-cool morning air warms with the first timid rays of sun that draw long shadows on the caruggi, while the city prepares to celebrate women and welcome spring with a rich and varied cultural program. It is that Genoese spirit that knows how to blend tradition and innovation, where the aroma of pesto intertwines with the notes of a tarantella and where every stone tells a story.
This weekend of March 6-8, 2026 promises to be full of significance: from Women’s Day, which colors Sunday with special initiatives, to theatrical performances that enliven the city stages, to festivals that celebrate the most authentic flavors of Liguria. A weekend where every corner of the city has something to offer, from the most intimate rooms of the historic center to the hills that embrace the sea.
Between pizziche and tarantelle: the South that resonates in the caruggi
Friday evening, the Sala Agorà of la Claque transforms into a small corner of Southern Italy in the heart of Genoa. Radici a Sud celebrates ten years of activity with a performance that is much more than a simple concert: it is a sonic journey through the traditions of Southern Italy, where the tambourine sets the rhythm and authentic voices tell millennial stories.
Photo by Elise Bunting on Pexels
The musicians, all Southern by birth or adoption, have built over the years a repertoire that ranges from Salento pizziche to Campania tammurriate, passing through Calabrian tarantelle. It is not folklore from a postcard, but living tradition that pulses and involves. La Claque, with its intimacy of a nineteenth-century bourgeois drawing room, becomes the perfect stage for this celebration of roots.
“Who sings pain dissolves it, who dances pain moves it”
— Proverb of Southern Italy
The evening promises to be engaging: the audience does not remain a passive spectator but is invited to participate, to clap their hands, to let themselves be carried away by that ancestral energy that the rhythms of the South know how to unleash. It is an experience that also speaks to Genoese people, a nation of navigators who have always known how to welcome different cultures and make them their own.
Theater that moves and makes you reflect
Genoa’s theatrical weekend is enriched with offerings that range from pure entertainment to social reflection. At Teatro del Ponente, Saturday evening, Luigi D’Elia brings to the stage “Fare un Fuoco”, a psychological thriller set in the wild lands of the Yukon that explores the limits of human endurance and the ancestral relationship between man and nature.
D’Elia, fresh from the success of “Caravaggio,” knows how to keep the audience glued to their seats. The story of a daring man who faces the frozen immensity of the Far North, accompanied only by his husky, becomes a powerful metaphor for solitude, determination, and the capacity for survival that each of us carries within.
For those looking for lighter theater but no less meaningful, Sunday afternoon Teatro della Tosse hosts “Oh! The Extraordinary Stories of a Great White Book“, a performance designed for families but that knows how to engage adults as well. Based on Hervé Tullet’s celebrated interactive book, the performance transforms young spectators into “play-actors” who become an integral part of the story.
It is participatory theater in the purest sense of the term: there is no fourth wall, the boundary between stage and audience dissolves and everyone becomes the protagonist of a story that is built moment by moment. A magical experience that reminds us how theater can be immediate and engaging when it breaks down conventions.
Sunday for women: celebrations and reflections
Sunday, March 8, Genoa takes on the colors of Women’s Day with initiatives ranging from culture to gastronomy. The International Women’s Day is celebrated with extraordinary openings and a rich program at the Gallino Library and the Buranello Civic Center: concerts, lectures, art exhibitions alternate to offer a comprehensive panorama of reflection and celebration.
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But it is perhaps at the Chiossone Museum of Oriental Art that the most poetic initiative is found: the workshop dedicated to Hinamatsuri, the Japanese festival of girls and peach blossoms. A fascinating cultural bridge that unites two seemingly distant traditions but linked by a shared attention to the feminine universe and beauty as an element of growth and education.
The museum, nestled in the tranquility of Castelletto with its breathtaking view of the city, offers the perfect opportunity to discover the delicate hina ningyō dolls and the refined art of hinadan, the tiered altar that transforms every Japanese home into a small temple of beauty during the festival.
“Women are the backbone of every society, but often invisible to the eyes of history”
— Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize winner
The flavors of tradition: from festivals to refined brunch
Genoa’s gastronomic weekend offers experiences for all tastes. In Pegli, the historic Farinata Festival continues, now in its 74th edition: an event that is much more than a simple food festival, but a collective ritual that celebrates one of the dishes that symbolizes Genoese tradition.
User:Rachel Dalby photographer, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Farinata, with its disarming simplicity — chickpea flour, water, oil and salt — contains centuries of maritime history: it was Genoese sailors who brought chickpeas from the East, and from the need for nutritious and long-lasting food came this dish that today is UNESCO heritage. Eating it on the waterfront of Pegli, with the salty sea breeze mingling with the aroma of toasted flour, is a complete sensory experience.
In Val Bisagno, Piazza Suppini hosts the Porchetta Festival instead, a younger but no less cherished event, celebrating the flavors of the Ligurian hinterland with roasted porchetta, mezze maniche and ribs, accompanied by the genuine conviviality of neighborhood festivals.
For those seeking a more refined experience, Meliá Genova offers a special brunch for International Women’s Day: from 11:30 to 14:00, the elegant atmosphere of the hotel fills with fresh and creative flavors, perfect for celebrating the day in good company.
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Music that crosses centuries and genres
Genoa’s musical weekend embraces vastly different repertoires, from classical music to progressive rock. On Sunday afternoon, the Auditorium delle Clarisse in Rapallo hosts a Piano Aperitivo Concert for four hands with Antonella Bellettini and Guglielmo Pianigiani, who will take you on a journey through twentieth-century French music with Ravel and Poulenc.
It’s music that can be refined without being elitist, perfect for a Sunday afternoon where the sound of the piano blends with the scent of the sea drifting in through the auditorium’s windows. The idea of the “aperitivo concert” reflects that Genoese spirit that makes even the highest culture accessible.
In the evening, also on Sunday, the Claque hosts Il segno del comando and Expiatoria for a concert celebrating the concept album “Voci Notturne,” inspired by the famous television miniseries by Pupi Avati. A project that intertwines music and narration, perfect for those who love evocative and mysterious atmospheres.
Art in dialogue between East and West
The Chiossone Museum, beyond the Hinamatsuri workshop, offers a guided tour of the “Ligustro, joy of living” exhibition on Saturday afternoon, dedicated to Giovanni Berio, a Ligurian master of the twentieth century who devoted his life to Japanese woodblock printing. It’s a perfect example of how Genoa has always been a bridge between different cultures.
The exhibition brings Ligustro’s prints into dialogue with masterpieces from the great Japanese masters in the Chiossone collection, creating a fascinating path that tells how art can transcend geographical and temporal boundaries. Seeing how a Ligurian artist interpreted a thousand-year-old Japanese technique is a journey into the universality of artistic language.
The weekend gem: aperitivo among the marbles of Staglieno
For those seeking a truly unusual experience, on Saturday afternoon you can participate in “Staglieno delle Meraviglie”, a narrated guided tour at the Monumental Cemetery that transforms what might seem like a sorrowful place into an open-air museum rich with fascinating stories.
Staglieno is not a simple cemetery: it’s a pantheon of marbles where artists, writers, entrepreneurs and eccentric figures rest, each with their own story to tell. The guided tour knows how to alternate moments of emotion with amusing anecdotes, revealing an unexpected side of Genoa that many Genoese themselves ignore. And after the visit, nothing stops you from stopping at one of the nearby venues for an aperitivo with a view of the city: an original way to experience the Genoese weekend.
If this March weekend is already calling you, our residences in the heart of Genoa await you to experience the city as a true insider. Because Genoa is not just visited: it is inhabited, it is breathed, it is lived one caruggio at a time.
