Two sea cities, one thread crossing the ocean. On the evening of July 6, aboard Nave Amerigo Vespucci moored at Pier 86, Genoa presented itself in New York with the event “Genoa: Wonders of Art and Nature” – moderated by journalist Clara Svanera – dedicated to the city as a tourist and cultural destination. To do the honors of the house, before leaving the word to the guests, was the commander of the ship, the Captain of Vascello Nicasio Falica, who remembered how the Vespucci has its base in La Spezia, in Liguria, and how the World Tour Amerigo Vespucci 2026 departed from Genoa.
Read the interview with Captain Nicasio Falica
To tell the city was the mayor Silvia Salis, who opened his intervention precisely from the link between the two shores of the Atlantic. “Genoa and New York are two cities on the sea that look at the world,” he said. “Two cities that intimately know immigration and emigration, which accompanied the story of those who were looking for fortune elsewhere and of those who found a new home”. An invisible but indestructible thread, he explained, connects the port of Genoa, with the MEI, the National Museum of Italian Migration, to Ellis Island, from where millions of Italians entered this country with the suitcase full of dreams and courage.
But next to the memory, Salis came to tell a new Genoa. “I am here to tell you about a Genoa that is experiencing an extraordinary rebirth on all fronts, from the economy to tourism, a city where the time has come to invest,” he said. The greatest desire, he explained, is that Genoa returns to be a city in which people want to stay, where young people can build their own future without having to look elsewhere, and above all a city in which to return and take root. The mayor recalled the urban regeneration plan that identifies thirty-two ex-industrial areas to make available to those with business projects and ideas, and the tools designed to accompany investors.
The international attention, moreover, has already arrived. Salis has remembered that this year the New York Times has inserted Genoa in its prestigious list “52 Places to Go”, and that a few weeks ago the Michelin guide has assigned three stars to the Museums of Strada Nuova, the maximum recognition, that according to the guide means that the destination “worth the journey”. An honor that arrives precisely in the year when the city celebrates the twentieth anniversary of its historic buildings, the Rolli, enrolled in the UNESCO World Heritage List. “It is not a hit of luck, but the result of a strategy that we carry forward with great determination,” he said. “This is the time to believe in Genoa, this is the time to invest in Genoa”.
Clara Svanera, who moderated the event, explained the choice of the title: “We called Genoa: Wonder of Art and Nature, resuming a phrase from the great French historian Fernand Braudel”, he said, describing it as a city growing inside who visits it. “More you discover it, the more surprising you”, he added, certain that even those who met it for the first time would fall in love.
The word then passed to the councilwoman at Trade and Tourism, Tiziana Beghin, who led the public to discover the city through some videos and told the heart of the Genoese offer. “Genoa is the encounter between modernity and ancient regime,” he said, recalling that the city was one of the richest and most powerful in the fifteenth century. Beghin dwelt on the Rolli system, the lists of aristocratic palaces which, by decree of the Republic, housed in dignitary rotation, ambassadors and rulers visiting. “It could be said that they were the first Airbnb in history, a century before the app started to work,” he joked, recalling that those buildings open their doors to the public twice a year.
Beghin insisted on what makes Genoa unique, its nature of vertical city, narrow between the mountains and the sea. “No other city in Italy can offer this possibility, an outdoor activity and a cultural journey at the same time,” he said, recalling the great names of art kept in the palaces, from Rubens to Van Dyck to Canova. The results, he added, are seen in numbers, with three and a half million overnight stays in 2025 and an increase of more than fifteen percent, more than half by foreign visitors. “The best way to feel it is to visit Genoa, so our invitation is, please, come”, he said.
To bring the greeting of the institutions was the Consul General of Italy in New York, Giuseppe Pastorelli, who welcomed the mayor Salis. “It is very important, not only for the links between the two cities, but because it approaches people,” he said, recalling the strong presence of Ligurians in the United States and New York. An account, he observed, is watching a video and listening to a presentation, another is going in person and living Genoa. “I am convinced that it is an experience that changes life”.
The meeting, one of the many hosted on board the Vespucci during the New York stop, closed with thanks to the Navy and Defense Services for the opportunity offered in Genoa, defined by the organizers the floating embassy of Italy in the world. And, looking at the rain falling on New York, from the stage came also a smile and an Italian proverb, that for which everything that happens in the rain brings luck. Perhaps, it was said, a good omen for the future of Genoa.
L’articolo Genoa presents itself in New York on board the Vespucci, between art, sea and new opportunities proviene da IlNewyorkese.
