GENOA’S HISTORIC SHOPS: HISTORY OF GENOA SEEN FROM ITS SHOPS

Genoa is an extraordinary art city, and I’ve already told you how it enchanted me the first time I visited it on the occasion of the Rolli days.
But Genoa is a place of traditions, as well, and, above all, it gives value to its history and traditions by preserving what remains of his past, such as the Botteghe Storiche (Historic shops).

When I came back to Genoa (and those who follow me on Instagram followed the days I spent between museums and streets of the city) I wanted to discover the Historic shops, enter the cafés, the pastry shops, the shops smelling of ancient furniture and flavours of the past, in order to find out the secrets of this city and of the Genoese people.

In Genoa you can drink a coffee or buy some chocolates in 200-year-old shops, which still house the ancient counter or the centuries-old decorations on the ceiling, which make their products following ancient recipes, and, in some cases, using the equipment of the past.
Genoa’s historic shops hide real treasures, and remain a point of reference for the Genoeses who do the shopping every day, because these shops are real shops, and not made for tourists.
In total, the historical shops are around 40 and have been in businesses for many years.  

If you go to the ancient Polleria Aresu, founded in 1910, you can queue together with the Genoese people who still buy chickens there. But if you go to Luigi Stagno who has been making custom-made shoes for 4 generations, you enter a neoclassical atmosphere, where you can meet other Genoeses who pick up their shoes. The same thing happens at Drogheria Torielli which since 1930 has been selling herbs and spices, colonial essences and coffee, including the 17 existing types of saffron.

These shops tell the history of a city which hasn’t forgotten its past and keeps the memory of what makes this city peculiar thanks to an important cultural activity, as much as the opening of the doors of a museum. To discover Genoa’s historic shops and to plan an itinerary, all you have to do is visit the official website www.botteghestorichedigenova.it .

Genoa’s historic shops I visited

I visited Pasticceria e confetteria Romanengo which makes its sweets using original equipment and utensils and where you can buy the “ginevrine” (“Genevans”) the famous Genoese pastilles made of flavoured and coloured sugar.

I drank a coffee and ate a sweet in Bar pasticceria Klainguti founded in 1828 and attended by Giuseppe Verdi, to whom the Klainguti family dedicated a characteristic pastry called Falstaff which you can eat still today at the counter.

Pasticceria Klainguti, interno.

Il soffitto di Romanengo