Chiavari

Via Martiri della Liberazione is the backbone of the old town, and everyone calls it the “carruggio dritto”, the straight lane. It is long, dead straight and arcaded on both sides, lined with pastry shops, historic cafés and old shops selling everything from fabric to anchovies. This is where locals take their evening stroll, especially on Saturdays.

On the second weekend of every month the street and the lanes around it fill with the stalls of the antiques market. Dates for 2026, opening hours and tips are in our guide to the Chiavari antiques market.

No two stretches of arcade are the same: low medieval arches, stone columns, whitewashed vaults. The oldest is Palazzo Masina, known as the “black arcades”, built in the first half of the 13th century with a Gothic façade. In the streets parallel to the carruggio you will also find the palazzi of the Fieschi and Ravaschieri families, who ran the town under the Republic of Genoa.

Walk slowly and look up: many façades have slate doorways, coats of arms and painted decoration. The centre began as a fortified Genoese town, with walls built in 1167.

Piazza Mazzini is the heart of town, surrounded by colourful buildings and café terraces. On the square stands Palazzo Torriglia, from the early 1600s. In the 19th century its ground floor was the Albergo della Posta, where Giuseppe Garibaldi stayed in 1849 and the novelist Alessandro Manzoni in 1852. On the Sunday of the antiques market the square hosts craft stalls and street artists.

The cathedral is Chiavari’s best-known landmark, with a huge marble portico of columns that looks like a classical temple. Building began in 1613, after an apparition of the Virgin traditionally dated 2 July 1610. The portico was designed by Luigi Poletti in 1836 but only finished in 1907. Our Lady of the Orchard is the town’s patron: on 2 July there is a big street fair and fireworks over the marina.

At the foot of the hill, a few minutes from the centre, Palazzo Rocca was built in 1629–1630 for the Costaguta marquises, again to a design by Bartolomeo Bianco. The town has owned it since 1912. The main floor houses the Civic Gallery of paintings, with limited opening times, so check before you go. Behind it the Villa Rocca park climbs the hillside with paths, old trees and views over the rooftops: a good shady break on a hot day.

Right opposite the station is the marina, full of sailing boats and yachts; the tour boats leave from here too. From the marina, corso Valparaiso runs along the sea: a long promenade with gardens, playgrounds, kiosks and ice-cream shops. Joggers use it in the morning, everyone else at aperitivo time.

Heading west, the promenade continues to the Preli area on a newer boardwalk that ends at the foot of the Colonia Fara.

On the hill behind the centre stand the walls and keep of the Genoese castle, built as an outpost against the Malaspina family, who besieged it in vain in 1172. You see it best from the ring road and the steps that climb into the hills; it is not set up for visits. The same steps lead to the footpaths towards Leivi.