The stadium neighborhood and authentic Genoa
Marassi is a name that resonates throughout Italy for a specific reason: the Luigi Ferraris Stadium, home of Genoa CFC and UC Sampdoria, is here. One of the few stadiums in the world shared by two teams from the same city, one of the oldest in Italy still in use, one of the noisiest in Europe on derby nights. But Marassi is much more than its stadium, and it would be a mistake to visit this neighborhood only when the match is on. It is a populous and authentic hilly neighborhood, perched on the side of the Bisagno valley, with its own precise identity that tourist Genoa has not yet undermined.
“The Ferraris is a stadium where you can breathe the history of Italian football: every match is a collective ritual that unites the whole city”
— Gianni Brera, Critical history of Italian football
The neighborhood develops along the Bisagno Valley, the stream that crosses Genoa from the north-east towards the sea: the narrow and deep valley has conditioned the urban shape of this part of the city, creating a neighborhood that grows vertically rather than horizontally, with streets that climb steeply towards the hill and buildings that overlap one another as in a Neapolitan nativity scene. Those who have lived in Marassi for generations know every staircase, every shortcut, every hidden shop: it is the Genoa that does not appear in guidebooks but which is the backbone of the real city.
Located to the east of the historic centre, beyond the Brignole station towards the hinterland, Marassi can be reached in a few minutes by bus from the station and offers apartment prices significantly lower than the central areas, which makes it interesting for extended stays or for those visiting Genoa on a specific budget without wanting to give up connections with the centre.
What to see in Marassi
The Luigi Ferraris Stadium, in Piazza Goffredo Villa, is the main point of interest in the neighborhood and one of the most beautiful Italian stadiums for those who love football in its most genuine form. Built in 1911 and renovated for the 1990 World Cup, it has a capacity of around thirty-six thousand seats and a concrete structure with four distinct stands that make it recognizable at a glance. The peculiarity that makes it unique in Europe is the coexistence of Genoa CFC – the oldest team in Italy, founded in 1893 by English sailors – and UC Sampdoria, with the two fans occupying opposite corners and staging one of the most intense and colorful football shows of the Italian championship in every city derby. The Museum of the History of Genoa can be visited by reservation on non-match days: it tells a century and a half of Genoese and Ligurian football history with memorabilia, photographs and archive documents of rare interest.
During match weeks, the entire neighborhood is transformed: the shops on Via Donghi and the streets near the stadium display the scarves and shirts of the two teams, the bars open until late, the fans come from all over Liguria and from outside the region. The pre-match in the bars of Marassi – with beer, tactical discussions and the human warmth of a community that gathers around football – is a social experience that goes far beyond football itself: it is a cross-section of Italian popular life that the big cities are losing.
Forte Quezzi, reachable on foot in about thirty to forty minutes of climbing from the Bisagno area, is one of the forts of the nineteenth-century defensive system that surrounded Genoa: a gray stone military structure with moat, bastions and internal barracks, built between 1819 and 1836 to protect access to the city from the Bisagno Valley. The fort can now be partially visited on Sundays when guided openings are organized by local associations – check the calendar on the website of the Municipality of Genoa – and offers from the top one of the most unusual views of the city: the Bisagno valley towards the sea, the districts of Marassi and Staglieno which overlap on the hillside, and in the distance the port and the open sea.
The Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno — technically in the Staglieno neighborhood but easily reachable from Marassi — is one of the most extraordinary cemeteries in the world and one of the least obvious but most impressive destinations in all of Genoa. Founded in 1851 on a neoclassical project of imposing grandeur, it houses funerary sculptures of the highest artistic level which attracted visitors from all over Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Oscar Wilde visited it and was deeply impressed. Among the most famous works are the Tomb of the Oneto Family with the famous statue of Faith, the large galleries covered with hundreds of marble and granite aedicules, and the tomb of Giuseppe Mazzini, the theorist of the Italian Risorgimento. Entrance is free and the cemetery is open every day. It is a place that no one expects to find so beautiful and that almost no tourist knows about.
The Bisagno Valley, which crosses the neighborhood from north to south, preserves along its banks some traits of urban nature that are unusual for a city of this type: tree-lined stone embankments, informal green spaces where the neighborhood’s children play, nineteenth-century bridges that can be crossed on foot. It is not a nature walk in the strict sense of the term, but it is one of the few urban green corridors in Genoa accessible on foot from the centre.
What to do in Marassi
The most authentic experience that Marassi can offer to a curious visitor is simply spending a morning at the local market which is held weekly in the neighborhood: fruit and vegetables, fresh fish, cheeses, local products sold by locals to locals, with prices that the historic center no longer knows. The market is the place where neighborhood life manifests itself in its most transparent form: conversations in dialect, mutual recommendations, personal knowledge between the seller and the customer that has lasted for years.
The climb to Forte Quezzi on foot is a short but rewarding excursion: you climb through the streets of the hilly neighborhood above Marassi, passing through stone stairs and alleys that resemble those of the historic center but without the tourists, until you reach the hill where the fort dominates the valley. At the top, sitting on the ramparts overlooking the Bisagno Valley and the distant port, you understand the geometry of the city which from above has a logic that is not always evident from below. The uphill route requires good shoes and a fair amount of physical fitness: some sections are steep.
A visit to the Staglieno Cemetery – reachable from Marassi with the AMT bus – requires at least two hours to be explored carefully and a few more hours for those who want to delve deeper into the most important sculptures. Bringing a guide or an application with the main routes is useful because the extension of the cemetery is considerable and finding your way without directions is difficult. The morning light, when the sun is low and hits the marble sculptures at angles that enhance their details, is the best time for a photographic visit.
On match Sundays – the dates are published on the Genoa and Sampdoria websites well in advance – attending a match at the Ferraris Stadium is an experience that goes far beyond football: it is a tribal ritual, a moment of community, a form of urban belonging that the modernization of football has not yet completely sterilised. Tickets can be purchased online on the official websites of the two teams and in authorized sales points in the city. Prices vary greatly depending on the sector and the importance of the match: the corners are the cheapest and the noisiest, the side stands guarantee a better view of the pitch.
Where to eat and drink in Marassi
Marassi is one of the neighborhoods where eating well in Genoa while spending little is still possible, thanks to the almost total absence of tourist pressure on prices and the presence of a loyal local clientele that prizes substantial quality rather than aesthetic quality. The trattorias in the neighborhood are those where the Genoese people of Marassi go for lunch every week, not for special occasions: which means generous portions, fresh ingredients and honest prices.
Along Via Donghi and in the streets around the stadium there are several bars and trattorias which on match days fill up hours before the kick-off: the Genoese pre-match ritual includes draft beer, focaccia, and loud football conversations that do not allow interruptions. On normal days, the same places are frequented by the neighborhood for lunch and dinner with a home-made menu that changes every day (€-€€). The focaccia is present in every bar in the neighborhood, baked early in the morning and sold individually until it runs out: the one in Marassi is no different from that in the historic center but costs less, which in itself is a good reason (€).
For a more substantial meal, the trattorias in the Bisagno area and on Via Prato, in the streets that follow the stream inland, offer traditional Genoese cuisine in simple and direct settings: pansoti with walnut sauce, accommodated stockfish, Genoese tripe on Mondays, cuttlefish buridda on Fridays. The wine is often served in the ceramic glass, as it used to be, and costs very little. They are places that do not advertise, have no website and change the menu daily based on what the market has offered: the type of place that makes you understand why Italian cuisine is considered the best in the world (€€).
The historic bars of the neighborhood, some of which have been open since the 1950s, serve Genoese coffee – intense, short, hot – with the same naturalness as bars in any Italian working-class neighborhood. The environment is that of discussions about the favorite team, of pensioners reading the newspaper, of children returning from school with their backpacks. It’s not sophisticated, but it’s deeply human (€).
How to get to and around Marassi
Marassi is connected to the center of Genoa by several AMT lines. The most direct bus from Brignole Station is the AMT 48 line, which runs along Via Tolemaide and Via Canevari to the heart of the neighborhood in about fifteen minutes. The AMT 13 and 16 lines connect Marassi with Piazza De Ferrari and the historic center. For those arriving from Principe Station, the most convenient route is the metro to Brignole and then the bus to Marassi.
On foot from Brignole Station, Marassi can be reached in about twenty-twenty-five minutes by following Via Canevari towards the interior of the valley: a flat route that crosses some of the most authentic commercial streets of non-tourist Genoa. The stadium is located about one kilometer from Brignole station in the north-east direction: five minutes by taxi, twenty minutes on foot. During rush hour before the match, taxis are difficult to find: better to take the bus or walk.
By car, Marassi is accessible from the Sopraenziale Brignole exit or from the Via Tolemaide directly. Parking in the streets of the neighborhood is generally available on normal days, but on match Sundays it becomes almost impossible in the immediate vicinity of the stadium: it is best to park in Brignole and reach the stadium on foot.
Where to sleep in Marassi
Staying in Marassi offers the main advantage of significantly lower prices compared to the central areas and the seafront, with connectivity that remains good thanks to the AMT buses and the proximity of the Brignole station. It is the right choice for those visiting Genoa on a specific budget without wanting to give up the quality of the accommodation, for those coming to the city for a match at the stadium and wanting to be within walking distance of the stadium, and for those who prefer authentic neighborhood life to a more refined tourist experience.
The apartments in Marassi are often found in buildings from the 1950s and 1960s with good size, terraces overlooking the valley and the hills, and that quality of night silence that the internal neighborhoods guarantee better than the historic centre. The neighborhood is safe, well lit and has all the necessary services for an independent stay: supermarkets, pharmacies, bars, restaurants, post office.
Explore the nearby neighborhoods too: if Marassi has intrigued you, also discover our guides on Foce and Brignole, Molassana and Val Bisagno and Sturla. Each area of Genoa has its own character and its own surprises.
In the Marassi and Valle del Bisagno area we manage ideal apartments for those looking for the authentic side of Genoa at affordable prices. Discover our residences on genovabb.it and choose your base to explore the city. Book directly online without intermediaries.
Marassi as a gateway to the Genoese hinterland
One of the lesser-known qualities of Marassi is that it is the natural starting point for exploring the Genoese hinterland: Val Bisagno towards the north leads in a few kilometers outside the city, towards villages such as Bavari, Creto and the first slopes of the Ligurian Apennines. For those who have access to a car and want to combine a visit to the city with some excursions in the Ligurian hinterland – the chestnut woods, the medieval villages, the paths of the Alta Via dei Monti Liguri – Marassi is geographically the best location. The connection with the historic centre remains quick and frequent.
Staglieno: the most beautiful monumental cemetery in Europe
Less than two kilometers from the heart of Marassi, reachable by the AMT bus line 34 directly from the Bisagno area, there is one of the most extraordinary and least frequented destinations in Genoa: the Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno. Inaugurated in 1851 and designed by the architect Carlo Barabino, it is considered by many scholars to be the most beautiful and richest in funerary sculptures in the world – a judgment that those who visit it tend to confirm without hesitation. An entire miniature city of the dead develops on an area of almost one million square metres, with tree-lined avenues, covered galleries, private chapels and funerary monuments that represent the best of Italian and European sculpture between the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century.
Staglieno’s most famous sculptures are works of museum quality: the statue of Faith on the tomb of the Oneto family – a semi-naked female figure holding a cross, sculpted by Onorato Toso in 1878 – is considered one of the absolute masterpieces of Italian funerary sculpture. The tomb of Giuseppe Mazzini, the Genoese philosopher and patriot, father of the Risorgimento, is visited every year by Italians and foreigners who pay homage to the theorist of national unity. But the real surprise of Staglieno is not the famous monuments: it is the thousands of smaller shrines and tombs, commissioned by bourgeois Genoese families and created by often anonymous sculptors with surprising quality and inventiveness, which make the walk through the galleries an aesthetically inexhaustible experience. Oscar Wilde visited it during a trip to Genoa and was so impressed by it that he cited it in his letters as one of the most beautiful places he had seen in Europe.
Entrance to the cemetery is free and is open daily from approximately eight in the morning to five in the afternoon. The complete visit takes at least three hours for those who want to walk through the main galleries and find the most significant monuments: bringing a map or downloading the dedicated application before entering is essential to orient yourself. The morning light, when the sun is low and hits the marble sculptures with a grazing light that enhances every detail, is the best time for a photographic visit.
Genoa CFC: the oldest team in Italy
Living or staying in Marassi means sharing the neighborhood with one of the oldest and most glorious footballing histories in Italy. The Genoa Cricket and Football Club, founded in 1893 by English sailors and traders resident in the British colony of Genoa, is the oldest football club in Italy and one of the oldest in Europe. The red and blue colors of Genoa – the red and blue of the flag of the Republic of Genoa – are present everywhere in the Marassi district: on the shirts hanging from the windows, on the scarves in the bars, on the murals on the walls of the buildings. Genoa won nine national championships between 1898 and 1924 – even before the Italian championship had the format we know today – and the memory of this historical greatness nourishes the identity of the Genoa fan with a continuity that the most recent sporting fortunes have not affected.
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