At five in the morning, when the sky above the Gulf of Genoa is still indigo and the rest of the city sleeps, a few boats are already returning to Boccadasse. The engine coughs softly, nets drip on the dock, and the smell that rises is not the sugary sweetness of postcard sea air, but something rougher: diesel fuel, rotting seaweed, fresh fish that still smells of the open sea. It’s a smell that Genoese people of a certain age recognize with their eyes closed, because it’s the smell of work, not tourism.
Genoa has never had a romantic relationship with the sea. It has had a practical, hard, daily one. For centuries the sea was a pantry before it was a landscape, and the fishermen who set out from the small harbors of the gulf — Boccadasse, Vernazzola, Sturla, Quinto — were not looking for the perfect sunset for a photograph, but for mullet, anchovies, cuttlefish that they would sell or eat that same evening. Today that trade has almost disappeared, eroded by industrial fishing and bureaucracy, but its traces are still readable for those who know where to look.
The techniques that the Ligurian sea taught
The Ligurian Sea is not as generous as other Italian seas. It is a narrow sea, deep close to shore, with an almost absent continental shelf: just a few hundred meters from the coast the seabed already plunges. This configuration forced Genoese fishermen for centuries to invent made-to-measure techniques, different from those used in the Adriatic or the lower Tyrrhenian Sea.
The net fishing was probably the most widespread technique along the Genoese coast: a wall of vertical net, anchored to the bottom and held afloat by cork, that was lowered at sunset and recovered at dawn. It worked by intercepting fish that moved at night along the coast — sea bass, sea bream, rock mullet. It was work that required patience and meticulous knowledge of the seabed: every fisherman knew exactly where to cast the net depending on the season, the moon, the current.
Different was the logic of the longline, or “palamito” as it’s still called around here: a main line that could be hundreds of meters long, from which hung dozens of secondary lines with baited hooks. It was used mainly for fishing bottom-dwelling species like scorpionfish or pouting, and it required hours of work just to prepare the hooks before heading out to sea. Fish traps, cages made of wicker or wire mesh constructed by hand, were instead used to catch crustaceans and small rocky reef fish: they were lowered near the shallows and left to work for days.
The lampara and the night of the anchovies
But if there is one image that tells the story of Genoese fishing better than any other, it is that of the lampara: boats that set out at nightfall with powerful carbide lamps, then oil, then electric, to attract schools of anchovies and sardines to the surface. Blue fish are phototropic, attracted to light, and fishermen knew this well: they lit up the water, waited for the schools to gather, and lowered the surrounding net to close them in a pouch.
Ville de Canet-en-Roussillon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped)
It was teamwork and nighttime, cold and silent, broken only by the sound of the engine and the thud of the net. The anchovy of the Ligurian Sea, caught this way, was and is different from the industrial kind: smaller, more flavorful, the basis of dishes that still today define Genoese cuisine, from stuffed anchovies to “bagnun,” the fishermen’s soup made with tomato and stale bread.
Gozzos and leudos: the boats that made the history of the gulf
No fishing technique would have worked without the right vessels, and the Genoese gulf developed specific ones, suited to a narrow and choppy sea. The gozzo is the emblematic vessel of Ligurian coastal fishing: rounded hull, slender prow, built in wood with techniques passed down from father to son in the small artisanal shipyards scattered along the coast. Sturdy yet maneuverable, the gozzo could be pulled ashore on the beach by a single man with the help of wooden rollers, as was necessary in villages like Boccadasse where there was no real harbor.
Mister No, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped)
The leudo, on the other hand, was a larger boat, with a lateen sail, used not so much for fishing as for carrying goods along the coast — lime, bricks, agricultural products — but in fishing villages it was sometimes also used for offshore fishing, when expeditions ventured further from shore. Seeing one today, restored, moored in the Porto Antico, gives a measure of how much manual work and how much seafaring expertise it took simply to put to sea, before diesel motors made everything simpler and more anonymous.
The fisherman’s calendar: seasons and species
Traditional Genoese fishing followed a precise calendar, marked not by the market but by the biology of the sea. Anchovies were fished mainly between spring and summer, when schools rise toward the surface for reproduction. Cuttlefish, with their compact meat and precious ink for risottos and pastas, were caught mainly in spring, when they approach the coast to lay eggs on shallow seabeds rich in posidonia.
Rock mullet, prized and with an intense flavor because they feed on small benthic invertebrates, were fish for net fishing or traps, present year-round but more abundant in autumn. Sea bass, solitary and wary predators, required the patience of a line or net cast in the right spots, often near the mouths of streams where fresh water mixes with salt water attracting small fish on which they feed.
This seasonal rhythm was not just technique: it was culture. Every fishing family knew when to “change nets,” when to stop going out for bad weather, when instead to risk a night of strong westerly wind to not miss the school of anchovies spotted by a companion.
The Fishermen Who Remain
Today, along the entire Genoese coast, the professional fishermen still active can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Industrial fishing, European regulations on quotas, fuel costs and competition from large fish markets have made it almost impossible to live solely from artisanal fishing. Those who persist do so often out of passion rather than economic necessity, carrying on a trade learned from fathers and grandfathers.
At Boccadasse, a fishing village in the heart of Municipality VIII Levante, a few boats still set out at dawn, especially in the milder months. Don’t expect to see the scenes of times past, with dozens of gozzi beached on the pebbles: today only a handful of boats remain, but the scene, for those who encounter it by chance while strolling early in the morning, remains authentic, not reconstructed for tourists.
That universe of Genoese fishermen and sailors — the taverns of the port, the fish, the wine, the hard work and solidarity of those who lived from the sea — is the same one told by Fabrizio De André in Crêuza de mä, the 1984 album created with Mauro Pagani and sung entirely in Genoese, the Ligurian dialect that De André chose for its wealth of words of Arabic, Turkish, Spanish and French origin, a legacy of the city’s ancient merchant trades.
Listening to it while walking along the ancient port, with the sound of seagulls and water lapping against the wharves, restores a piece of that Genoese soul that the fishing trade helped to shape.
Where to Still See the Trade, Between Museums and Living Testimonies
For those who want to truly understand what fishing meant in Genoa before the industrial era, the starting point is the Galata Museum of the Sea, in Porto Antico: the galleries dedicated to maritime heritage tell not only the great Genoese trade routes, but also the tools and vessels of small coastal fishing, with models of gozzi and original equipment.
More informal but no less authentic is the atmosphere you breathe in Boccadasse itself: fishing nets hung to dry on the walls, colorful boats pulled ashore, fishermen who still today repair their fish traps sitting on a bench in the sun. It’s not an organized spectacle, it’s everyday life that continues, albeit reduced to a handful of people compared to fifty years ago.
The fish market, in the early morning hours near the harbor, remains a place to observe — at a respectful distance and without getting in the way of work — the negotiation between fishermen and merchants, a ritual made of quick gestures and technical language that seafaring Genoese still use naturally.
The sea of the Genoese, today
For most Genoese, their relationship with fishing is no longer professional but remains personal. There are those who go out on Saturday mornings with a fishing rod from the shore on the Passeggiata Anita Garibaldi in Nervi, those who still keep a small fishing boat at Sturla and use it for recreational fishing trips on summer weekends, those who simply buy fish directly from a fisherman they’ve known their whole life, happily skipping the fishmonger.
It’s a relationship that has become lighter, less vital in economic terms, but no less tied to identity. The Genoese remains proud of knowing how to recognize fresh anchovies by the color of their gills, of knowing how to clean a cuttlefish without damaging the ink sac, of telling — perhaps exaggerating a bit — the legendary catch story of some long-gone uncle. These are small gestures that keep alive a seafaring culture that has disappeared more quickly elsewhere.
Practical advice for those who want to get closer to this world
If you want to watch the fishermen’s boats return, the right time is very early, generally before seven in the morning: at Boccadasse it’s best to arrive when the village is still quiet, before the first tourists arrive. The best period to see more activity is between spring and early summer, when blue fish fishing is more intense.
To learn more about the history of seafaring, the Galata Museo del Mare deserves half a day: it’s best to arrive early to avoid crowds in the more interactive rooms. Those staying in the Porto Antico area can reach it easily on foot, combining the visit with a walk along the wharves where historic boats are moored.
For those who prefer the atmosphere of villages, a morning walk through Boccadasse, perhaps continuing towards Sturla and Vernazzola, offers a more intimate and less touristy glimpse of maritime Genoa, away from the most beaten paths.
A trade to preserve, not to lament
Telling the story of traditional Genoese fishing doesn’t mean giving in to nostalgia for a vanished world, but recognizing that something precious — a skill, a direct relationship with the sea, an entire vocabulary made of knots, currents and seasons — risks disappearing without a trace if no one tells its story. The few fishermen remaining along the Genoese coast are not folkloric figures: they are the last guardians of practical knowledge that has nourished the city for centuries.
Those who visit Genoa and are satisfied with the postcard-perfect waterfront miss half the story. The Genoese sea must be understood from this rougher and less photogenic side too: the nets hung out to dry, the smell of fresh fish at the market, the boat pulled ashore on the gravel of Boccadasse. It’s a sea that deserves to be experienced from within, not just admired from a terrace.
If this story has made you want to feel Genoa’s sea with all your senses — not just look at it — we’re waiting for you in our residences in the heart of the city, where the harbor, the caruggi and fishermen’s villages are within walking distance. Discover our Genoa guide to best organize your days between sea and city, and when you’re ready, you can book your stay to experience it like a true Genoese.
