Where Corso Italia ends, Genoa hides a village: Boccadasse, a handful of pastel houses squeezed around a pebble bay, wooden boats hauled ashore and nets still hanging. It is the fishing hamlet inside the city, where the Genoese come to "have a gelato" — an institution here, with whipped cream — and watch the sea from a bench.
The little church of Sant'Antonio watches from above; sunsets set the bay alight in every season.
Our tip: walk along Corso Italia from the centre (a half-hour seafront stroll) and take your cone down onto the pebbles: that is the rite. Summer evenings get crowded: early morning, instead, Boccadasse still belongs to the fishermen.