Genoa, verdict by verdict

Genoa rewards travelers who like their cities unvarnished. Italy's great medieval port packs the UNESCO-listed Palazzi dei Rolli, one of Europe's largest car-free historic centres and a working harbour into a place that never quite surrendered to tourism. The caruggi alleys are a maze worth getting lost in, the pesto, focaccia, farinata and seafood are the best value in northern Italy, and the Aquarium gives families a modern anchor on the Porto Antico.

The catch is texture: Genoa is scruffy, steep and occasionally edgy, the lanes around Principe station and the docks need normal big-port caution after dark, and there is no single blockbuster monument, so the payoff is cumulative rather than instant. Anyone after a tidy postcard-clean city or a beach-first holiday is in the wrong place; the city beaches are modest and often private, and narrow unlit alleys at night would spoil the trip for some.

Two days covers the centre and Porto Antico; three to four adds the Riviera by rail, with Camogli and the Cinque Terre in easy reach. April-June and September-October are the kindest months, August is hot with half the shops closed, and winter is mild but wet. Stay in the Historic Center or by the Porto Antico and the city opens up fast: the payoff lands in the pesto, the palaces and the sudden sea views.