Page 237 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Italy

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Liguria

Liguria is a long, thin coastal strip nestling at the foot of
vine-covered mountains. Here pastel-coloured houses
bask in the Mediterranean sun, while their gardens,
flourishing in the mild climate, are a riot of colourful plants.
In contrast with resorts like Portofino and even Sanremo,
the bustling city of Genoa, for centuries a trading port of
immense power, is the only major population centre.
Genoa has a long history as a seafaring and included the glorious
power, achieving greatness first as a reign of Andrea Doria, who
trading post with ancient Greece and enriched the city by financing the wars of
Phoenicia and, later, as the capital of a Genoa’s European allies through the offices
small commercial empire that at one of the city’s bank. Factionalism among the
stage eclipsed even Venice. The great sea ruling aristocracy, however, and foreign
admiral Andrea Doria came from Genoa, conquest, by the French in 1668 and the
as did the 15th-century explorer of the Austrians in 1734, led to the region’s decline.
Americas, Christopher Columbus. It was only in the early 19th century,
Genoa’s rise began in the 12th century, with unification fervour spreading thanks
when it succeeded in beating the Saracen to native son Giuseppe Mazzini and the
pirates that plagued the Ligurian coast. revolutionary Garibaldi, that Liguria ever
Thereafter, the maritime republic recaptured a glimpse of its former
prospered, profiting from the Crusades prominence. Today, sheltered by the steep
to set up trading posts in the Middle slopes that rise from the sea, faded, elegant
East and marshalling its naval might to mansions lie along the coast, particularly in
humble its rivals. The golden age lasted Sanremo, where aristocrats came to spend
from the 16th to the mid-17th century, the winter at the end of the 19th century.

Green shutters and rich ochre walls characterize the houses of Portofino
The sunlight harbour of Riomaggiore, one of the Cinque Terre

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