Zoagli put its towers on its coat of arms: when the presidential decree of 14 March 2002 fixed the municipal arms, the two Saracen towers ended up at the centre of the shield, the eastern one and the western one, on blue and yellow, the colours of the confraternities of seamen and of silk weavers. Of the two, the torre di Levante is the one left standing on its own, and today it hosts cultural and artistic conferences.
What to see
The Republic of Genoa had both built in the sixteenth century to protect the village from the pirate raids that worked this stretch of coast; in the centuries that followed both were altered and rebuilt. The western twin took a different path: in the eighteenth century it was absorbed into the grounds of the castle of the counts Canevaro and joined to the building; that Saracen tower carries the date 1547.
With the torre di Levante, position is what counts, right at the waterline on the eastern side of the village: an observation post before a fortress, planted where the sea first delivered the outline of a suspect sail. That it is still standing is no small thing in a town almost flattened on 27 December 1943 by an Allied raid aimed at the railway viaduct, which in those hours lost its town hall, its parish church and its hospital.
Visiting
Getting here is easy: the station on the Genoa-La Spezia line sits in the village itself and the Aurelia runs high above the houses. From the centre you drop down to the seafront walk, the cliff-side path cut against the rocks in the nineteen thirties and paid for partly by the residents themselves; the tower closes the route at its eastern end. The interior opens for conferences and meetings; outside those dates you look at it from the street.
Our editors' tip
Walk the cliff path right to the end and only then turn round: from there the tower stands clear against the house fronts and the green of the hill, and it is exactly the framing that ended up on the coat of arms. With a full day, take the five bell towers trail, twelve kilometres linking the old churches of San Pietro di Rovereto, Semorile, San Pantaleo and Sant'Ambrogio to San Martino: the climb is quick and the gulf stays below you, wider and wider.