Italy Guide
Liguria
Stazione Marìttima
The fin-de-siècle Stazione Marìttima was once the departure point for steamers to New York and Buenos Aires, but nowadays handles ferries to Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily. It was from the Ponte dei Mille (Jetty of the Thousand) in front of the ferry terminal that Giuseppe Garibaldi, ex-mercenary and spaghetti salesman, persuaded his thousand Red Shirts to set off for Sicily in two clapped-out paddle steamers, armed with just a few rifles and no ammunition. Their mission, to support a Sicilian uprising and unite the island with the mainland states. About 1km further round the port is Genoa's restored sixteenth-century lighthouse, the Lanterna, as well as the Matitone, a postmodern polygonal tower housing municipal offices whose pointed roof has given it its sardonic nickname "The Big Pencil".