Full-Day private tour of Portofino and Genoa

Albertis Castle stands a short distance from the main harbour and houses the Museum of World Cultures. The castle itself was created in a Gothic Revival style and was built in 1886. It is actually built on the site of a previous 12th century fort and preserves the forts original foundations. The castle offers great views of the Ligurian Sea and the surrounding city. Inside the building is the wonderful museum of world cultures. This collection includes a range of findings from around the world by Enrico and Luigi Albertis such as weaponry from the Sudan and China, and artefacts from the Mayan civilization.

Just a few meters from the massive cathedral of San Lorenzo, Chiesa del Gesu is one of the oldest churches in Genoa, originally dating back to the 6th century. While the outside of the church was completely rebuilt in 1894 when the Doge's Palace was strongly renovated, it still houses one of the most gorgeous ceilings in the city. Gilded in gold, and covered in richly-colored paintings, visit the Chiesa at sunset to see everything beautifully illuminated by a natural, ethereal glow.

St. George's Church or the Church of San Giorgio (Chiesa di San Giorgio) Catholic Church, located on the promontory of Portofino. According to the tablet, located in the Church, the Shrine was built in the Romanesque style in 1154. Although the excavations carried out during the reconstruction of the Church after the Second world war, were found the remains of an ancient chapel, once located on this site, which may relate the history of the Church to the era of the Lombards in Liguria.

The house is located outside Genoa's 14th-century walls. During the Renaissance, the area became subject to intense building, mainly consisting of public housing. Columbus was born in 1451, and historical documents indicated that Columbus lived here between approximately 1455 and 1470. At this time, the house had two or maybe three stories, with a shop on the ground floor, and the front door to the left of the shop. According to historian Marcello Staglieno, the original house was most likely destroyed in the French Bombardment of Genoa in 1684. It was rebuilt in the early 18th century on the basis of the original ruins. The rebuilt structure had a height of five stories. However, the upper stories were built by placing their beams on the neighboring buildings. When the neighboring buildings were demolished around 1900, as part of the construction of Via XX Settembre, the upper stories of this building were removed, and it was reduced to its current height of two stories. Currently, the building operates as a museum, under the management of the "Porta Soprana" Genovese cultural association. Its central location and nearby parking make it a popular meeting place for the Genovese.

Located on the Gulf of Genoa in the Ligurian Sea, Genoa has historically been one of the most important ports on the Mediterranean: it is currently the busiest in Italy and in the Mediterranean Sea and twelfth-busiest in the European Union. Genoa has been nicknamed la Superba ("the proud one") due to its glorious past and impressive landmarks. Part of the old town of Genoa was inscribed on the World Heritage List (UNESCO) in 2006 as Genoa: Le Strade Nuove and the system of the Palazzi dei Rolli. The city's rich cultural history in art, music and cuisine allowed it to become the 2004 European Capital of Culture. It is the birthplace of Guglielmo Embriaco, Christopher Columbus, Andrea Doria, Niccolò Paganini, Giuseppe Mazzini, Renzo Piano and Grimaldo Canella, founder of the House of Grimaldi, among others.

At Genoa's harbor, some 22 kilometers of wharves host cruise, pleasure, and transport vessels in one of the Mediterranean's two largest ports (the other is Marseilles). As the traffic outgrew the Porto Antico (also called the Porto Vecchio - old port), a series of new facilities and a maritime station were built for shipping commerce, to welcome cruise passengers, and house a maritime museum and aquarium. But the historic section remains, and you can still see the Darsena, where the galleys of Admiral Andrea Doria were built. For the best sense of the enormity and activity of the harbor, as well as to see the big ships and the little Porticciolo Duca degli Abruzzi, used by yachts and sailing boats, hop onto one of the many harbor cruises. As a bonus, you will also get the best view of the city itself, spread in a giant bowl at the foot of the mountains. From Piazza Cavour, south of the free port, runs the Circonvallazione a Mare, a seafront highway built when the outer city walls were torn down. The highway passes the International Trade Fair grounds on land reclaimed from the sea, ending at Piazza della Vittoria.

The Lanterna di Genoa is an ornate ancient lighthouse that has stood since the 12th century but over time has been reconstructed. It stands as the main lighthouse of the harbour and is an iconic landmark of the city. After the tower of Hercules and the Kopu lighthouse, it is the oldest in the world. A large icon of the city of Genoa is present on one side, and the top is crowned with a large glass light. Standing at 76m high it towers over the surrounding area and can be seen for miles.

Piazza De Ferrari is the main square of Genoa. Situated in the heart of the city between the historical and the modern center, Piazza De Ferrari is renowned for its fountain, which was restored in recent years along with a major restyling of the square. Today next to Piazza De Ferrari are numerous office buildings, headquarters of banks, insurances and other private companies, making of this district the financial and business centre of Genoa, so that the Genoese popularly refers to it as the "City" of Genoa. At the end of the 19th century, Genoa was the main financial centre of Italy along with Milan, and Piazza De Ferrari was the place where many institutions were established, like the stock exchange, the Credito Italiano, the branch offices of the Bank of Italy, founded in 1893.

Although situated right next to the Piazza De Ferrari, the Piazza Matteotti is a wonderful location in its own right and features a range of historical buildings and sights. Doges Palace sits at one of the of square and is a truly opulent building framed by a series of stone columns, whilst at the other end sits the fabulous San Lorenzo Cathedral. Furthermore, markets are often held here and you can pick up a great bargain after haggling with the locals. Finally, there is also the Church of Saint Ambrogio which is a fantastic building which an ornate interior.

Encompassing the three areas of the city – the castrum that developed on the hill of Castello, the civitas, which rose up around the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, and the burgus, a commercial area around the monastery of San Siro – Genoa's new city walls were built in the 12th century to defend the independence of the Republic against the expansionist ambitions of Emperor Barbarossa, after whom they are named. The vast majority of the city's inhabitants participated, both materially and financially, in the work required, which was thus completed in record time between 1155 and 1159 ,while 1161 saw the completion of three of the two-towered gates: Porta Soprana, Porta Aurea and Porta di Santa Fede. Porta Soprana served as the entrance to the city for those arriving from the east, looking over the plane of Sant'Andrea, which took its name from a monastery demolished in the 19th century to create Via Dante and the building that currently houses the Banca d'Italia. All that survives of the monastery today is the splendid Romanesque cloister. Barely a stone's throw away is the house-museum of Christopher Columbus, an 18th-century reconstruction of the original building in which the man who discovered the Americas lived in his youth, later destroyed during the French bombings of 1684. Right beside Columbus's home stands the 12th-century cloister of the ancient monastery of Sant'Andrea.

Portofino is an Italian fishing village and holiday resort famous for its picturesque harbor and historical association with celebrity and artistic visitors. It is a comune located in the Metropolitan City of Genoa on the Italian Riviera. The town is clustered around its small harbour and is known for the colorfully painted buildings that line the shore.

Castello Brown is a house museum located high above the harbor of Portofino, Italy. The castle's site is well suited for harbor defense and appears to have been so used since the 15th century. According to the Record Office of Genoa, cannon batteries were constructed on the site in the early 16th century, and military engineer Giovanni Maria Olgiati drew up plans for a full fortress circa 1554. The Castello was completed by 1557, and, in 1575, was instrumental in turning back an attack on the town by Giò Andrea Doria. The structure was enlarged from 1622 to 1624 and survived in this form for a century and a half. The little tower was destroyed in 1798 by an English attack during Napoleon's Ligurian Republic. The Castello was abandoned after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In 1867, the structure was purchased for 7,000 lire by Montague Yeats-Brown, then English consul in Genoa. He engaged the architect Alfredo D'Andrade, and with advice from his artist friend and fellow-consul James Harris the fort was transformed into a comfortable villa without substantial alteration in its general form. Yeats-Brown's descendants held the property until 1949, then sold it to an English couple, Jocelyn Baber and Lieutenant-Colonel John Baber CBE. The Babers restored several ruined sections, and in turn, sold it in 1961 to the City of Portofino. Elizabeth von Arnim wrote her novel The Enchanted April at the Castello in 1922. The award-winning 1992 movie adaptation featuring Miranda Richardson and Joan Plowright was filmed on site.

Portofino Lighthouse (Italian: Faro di Portofino) is an active lighthouse located in Portofino, Metropolitan City of Genoa, Liguria, northern Italy, on the western extremity of the peninsula in the Gulf of Tigullio. The lighthouse was built in 1917 and consists of a white quadrangular tower, 12 feet (3.7 m) high, with balcony and lantern, attached to a 2-storey white keeper's house. The lantern, painted in grey metallic, is positioned at 40 metres (130 ft) above sea level and emits one white flash in a 5 seconds period, visible up to a distance of 16 nautical miles (30 km; 18 mi). The lighthouse is completely automated, powered by a solar unit and is operated by the Marina Militare with the identification code number 1675 E.F.

You might expect a street laid out in the 16th and 17th centuries as a setting for palaces of Genoa's richest and most powerful families to be a grand broad avenue, but Via Garibaldi is little more than a lane. It seems even narrower because it is hemmed in on both sides by the grandiose facades of side-by-side palaces. This little street, which lies north of Piazza Ferrari and above the sailors' quarter, is worth walking down even if none of the palaces is open to tour. Its facades present a succession of carved and painted embellishments, frescoes, grand arcades and loggias, balconies, courtyards, and entrances crowned by crests of noble families whose homes these were. So outstanding is this assemblage that it was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You can tour three of these -- Palazzo Rosso, Palazzo Bianco, and Palazzo Tursi - on a single ticket to see the interiors and their superb art collections.