Quinto and Quarto: Garibaldi’s secret villages between sea and history

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At seven in the morning, when the regional train to La Spezia slowly crosses the coast between Genoa and Nervi, passengers gaze distractedly out the window. They see apartment buildings from the Sixties, a few terraces overlooking the sea, nothing that seems worth a stop. And yet, right here, in the two neighborhoods that the train passes through without barely slowing down, lies hidden one of the most intense pages of Italian Risorgimento. Above all, you can still breathe the authentic Genoa of maritime villages.

Quinto al Mare and Quarto dei Mille are not postcards. They are residential neighborhoods where Genoese people come to seek silence, far from tourist routes. But for those who know how to look, every corner tells stories that changed Italy. The villa where Garibaldi embarked for Sicily. The church that safeguards ex voto offerings from sailors. The terraces from which one can see the horizon that Columbus attempted.

Quinto al Mare: the village that the sea forgot

Get off at Quinto al Mare station and you’ll immediately understand why this place never makes it into tourist guides. The stop is a simple platform between houses, without even a proper shelter. But this very modesty is its charm. Here you won’t find crowds of tourists with cameras around their necks, but elderly women returning from shopping and fishermen repairing their nets.

The heart of the neighborhood is the small waterfront, a walk of a few hundred meters that borders a pebble beach where Genoese families bring their children on Sundays. No fashionable beach establishments, just a few boats pulled ashore and the constant sound of waves against the rocks. In winter, when the sea is rough, spray reaches the road.

But the real treasure of Quinto is hidden behind a wrought iron gate, at number 8 Via Quinto. This is where the Church of San Guglielmo stands, a small jewel from the twelfth century that most Genoese have never seen. The facade is simple, almost austere, but inside it holds a patrimony of sailors’ ex voto offerings that tells centuries of voyages at sea. Painted tablets by inexperienced but faithful hands, showing ships in storms and invocations to the Madonna. The smell of incense mingles with the salt air filtering through the windows.

“Quinto and Quarto are the places where the history of Italy passed on tiptoe, leaving traces that only those who know how to look can find.”

— Renzo Villa, Genoese historian

Right next to the church, a dirt path leads to what was once Villa Candido, now known as Villa Garibaldi. The villa still exists, though transformed into a condominium, but the garden descending toward the sea still preserves the atmosphere of that May 1860 when the Hero of Two Worlds embarked here to reach Quarto and depart for Sicily. There is no plaque, no monument. Only the silence of the sea and the imagination of those who know that from these stone steps the Unification of Italy set forth.

Quarto dei Mille: where the legend departed

From Quinto to Quarto the route is a twenty-minute walk along Via Aurelia, but it’s better to take the path that hugs the coast. It’s a bit steep in some spots, but offers views worth the effort: hidden inlets where Genoese people go fishing, private terraces that look like hanging gardens over the Mediterranean, and above all the silence interrupted only by the sound of waves.

Quarto owes its name to the distance from Genoa: four Roman miles. But it owes its fame to a villa that today looks like just one of many buildings on the Riviera. Villa Spinola, better known as Villa dei Quattro Venti, has nothing spectacular about it from the outside. It’s a nineteenth-century construction with shutters closed and a garden that could use some care. And yet, it was from here that on the night of May 5, 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi and his thousand volunteers departed for the expedition to Sicily.

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The story is well-known, but experiencing it in this place is different from reading about it in books. The square in front of the villa is the same one from which the boats departed that took the men to the two steamships anchored offshore, the Piemonte and the Lombardo. At night, with calm seas and the lights of Genoa reflecting on the water, you can almost feel the bustle of that night which changed history.

Today a small plaque commemorates the event, but the true monument is the sea itself, which from here seems infinite. It is the same horizon that the Thousand saw before setting off on an enterprise that everyone considered mad. And perhaps it is precisely this sense of immensity that makes Quarto a special place: not the rhetoric of monuments, but the silent power of the landscape.

“From Quarto to Marsala, carrying with us the hope of a united Italy and the blessing of the sea that saw us born.”

— Giuseppe Garibaldi, Memoirs

The secrets that tourists don’t see

The paradox of Quinto and Quarto is that their very marginality from tourist circuits has preserved them. While Nervi is invaded by tour buses and Boccadasse has become an Instagram destination, these two neighborhoods still maintain the slow rhythm of fishing villages. Women stop to chat in front of the bakery, children play in small public gardens, fishermen set out at dawn without a sound.

But there is another reason why these places remain hidden: they are difficult to reach if you don’t know the area. Regional trains stop there, but the stations are not marked as tourist destinations. By bus you need to take urban lines that tourists don’t consider. And on foot from Nervi it’s almost an hour’s walk along a road that doesn’t always have a sidewalk.

But this “inconvenience” is their greatest treasure. Here you can still hear authentic Genoese dialect, the kind that gets lost in the caruggi invaded by selfies. You can buy bread at the neighborhood bakery where the owner knows everyone by name. You can sit on a bench overlooking the sea without having to share the space with dozens of other people.

Most importantly, you can understand how Genoese people lived before Genoa became a tourist destination. These neighborhoods have remained faithful to their nature as working-class and maritime villages, where life flows at the rhythm of the tides and seasons.

When to visit and how to experience them

The best time to visit Quinto and Quarto is early in the morning, when the sun illuminates the sea from the east and the neighborhoods wake up slowly. In summer it’s best to avoid the midday hours: without trees and with the glare of the sea, the heat can be intense. Autumn and winter have their own charm: rougher seas, more intense colors, and above all fewer people.

To reach them, the regional train from Genova Brignole is the most convenient option: it stops at both Quinto and Quarto, and the journey takes about twenty minutes. Alternatively, urban buses 15 and 17 connect both neighborhoods with central Genoa, but journey times increase considerably in traffic.

Once there, the best way to explore them is on foot. The distances are short, but the elevation changes can be challenging: wear comfortable shoes and don’t be in a hurry. The ideal is to dedicate half a day to both neighborhoods, perhaps combining the visit with a walk to Nervi or lunch at one of the small local restaurants.

Don’t expect tourist services: you won’t find information points, maps, or audio guides here. But you will find something more precious: the authenticity of a Genoa that resists time and mass tourism. It is the Genoa that its inhabitants love most, the one that reveals itself only to those patient enough to seek it out.

The return to an authentic Genoa

Quinto and Quarto are not just two peripheral neighborhoods where Giuseppe Garibaldi left his mark. They are the symbol of a Genoa that many believe is lost: that of fishing villages, communities that know each other, slow rhythms marked by the sea. At a time when even the most hidden places are being “discovered” and transformed into tourist attractions, these two neighborhoods resist in their ordinariness.

Perhaps it is precisely this ordinariness that holds their greatest charm. Here, history is not mummified in museums, but still lives in the stones, in the scents, in the daily gestures of the inhabitants. The same hands that repair fishing nets might once have loaded Garibaldi’s boats. The same sea that touches the feet of children playing on the beach witnessed the departure of the Thousand for Sicily.

Walking through Quinto and Quarto means traveling through time, and through space as well: from the Genoa of grand palaces and museums to the real Genoa, the one that wakes with the dawn and falls asleep to the sound of the waves. It is a Genoa that has no need for monuments to be grand, because its greatness lies in the life itself that continues, day after day, season after season.

If you are looking for authentic Genoa, the one that Genoese people truly love, do not stop at Nervi. Continue on to Quinto and Quarto, and you will discover that sometimes the most precious treasures are those that hide in plain sight, protected only by their apparent ordinariness. Our residences in the heart of Genoa are the ideal starting point for these explorations: close enough to return comfortably, far enough to make you feel like true explorers of the city’s most authentic side.

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