Genoa, the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, is Italy's neglected city, but one visitor found many charms in this city that gushes with palazzi, ancient churches, plazas, gardens and vintage arcades where time seems pleasantly mired in the Middle Ages.

By Sergio Ortiz

I'd been hanging around the Italian Riviera checking out Camogli's fish festival, hiking in the Cinque Terre and trying to soak up a little culture by reading Ezra Pound's ``Cantos'' in the sidewalk cafe in front of the waterfront apartment where he lived in Rapallo.

Do you know what it's like to be in a town so beautiful that it makes you daydream about what it would be like to win the lottery or a pile of money in Las Vegas, enough to allow you to live there? Rapallo is such a place. It has moved poets. It's the ``little town by river or seashore'' described by Keats in ``Ode On a Grecian Urn,'' and Yeats called its coastline ``Rapallo's thin line of broken mother-of-pearl.'' Now it was time to close the books, hop on a train and head for home.

At the station in Genoa, still basking in Rapallo's afterglow, or perhaps subconsciously trying to avoid my return, I counted my resources. There were some lira left, so I bought a city map and studied it. Genoa is Italy's neglected city, merely a place to cross to and from the pastel towns scattered along the craggy coast of the Ligurian Sea. No one stops here. Guidebooks gloss over it, pointing out its huge commercial harbor and its grimy appeal, and then move on to justifiably fawn over the postcard towns nearby. It's never mentioned in the same breath with the great Italian destinations of Venice, Florence and Rome. Yet it has a milder climate than those cities because it is shielded by the Ligurian Apennines from the glacial Alpine winds.

My map showed a hilly city sprawling in the middle of the two Italian Rivieras, the Levante (sunrise) and the Ponente (sunset), like a referee breaking up two boxers in a clinch. The ancients knew what they were doing when they started a settlement in this great natural harbor way back before there was a Roman Empire. But all I knew about it was that it once was a predominant city-republic rivaling Venice and Florence, and the birthplace of Christopher Columbus and Andrea Doria, the admiral who wrestled this part of Italy from French control in the 16th Century.

I figured that my lira could last a few more days, so I walked out into the street with no destination, reservations or definite plans other than to see Genoa. Outside the station there's a rather massive and tacky monument to Columbus. He's surrounded by a bunch of angelic-looking Indians, nothing like the fierce Caribs with a penchant for cannibalism that he stumbled upon in the New World. The marble explorer gazes determinedly toward a large avenue called Via Balbi, so I headed down that street and within a few blocks came upon a cobblestone alley embellished with a marble depiction of the Golden Fleece. I was to learn later that this was the family crest of the Dorias, and that the small hotel at the end of the alley where I found a room was the home of the admiral almost 400 years ago.

Most people are not aware that in Italy you can barter for rooms. Depending on the circumstances, it's often feasible to cut the posted rate in half. So I bartered and got a room with a view of the city's steeples and, oddly enough, a building still showing its scars from Royal Navy bombings during World War II.

I sat at the desk and studied my map again. My hotel sat on the fringes of the city's Medieval District, a zone that, according to the map's text, was full of worthwhile sights. Tourist maps characteristically grovel shamelessly over banal landmarks and settings, but mine didn't even come close to doing justice to the charms of Genoa, a city of San Francisco-style hills and beautiful confusion.

The first impression is that Genoa is more a relic than a huge maritime industrial center. Sure, the harbor is jam-packed with container ships and the docks hum with activity. After all, this is the busiest port in Europe after Marseilles. But leave the merchant marine flurry at the waterfront, and you're left with an ocher-and-pink town gushing with palazzi, ancient churches, plazas, gardens and vintage arcades where time seems pleasantly mired in the Middle Ages.

And then there's the (ITAL) caruggi (uqTAL), the most whimsical streets in Italy and probably the most distinctive feature of the city. These are timeworn alleys so narrow that the sun only shines on the cobblestones for a few minutes when at its zenith, and it's often possible to touch the facing buildings with your outstretched arms. They're remnants from simpler times when life crawled at the speed of a horse's gait. They are delightful, narrow byways that have never known an automobile and mirror Genoa's character that is a fetching blend of the ancient with the contemporary.

The Medieval District spreads outward through a baffling network of these caruggi, hiding peeling palaces from where the impenetrable Genoese dialect -- a mixture of Calabrese, Neapolitan and Portuguese -- finds vent. Walking in Genoa is sheer delight, as many of the streets are nothing but medieval lanes full of flower stalls, fish markets, ship chandlers, trattorias and taverns shrouded with the scents wafting from them. The whole Medieval District reeks of a mixture of brine, coffee, tar, wet rope and undetermined spices.

A few blocks from my hotel I found a row of massive, vintage buildings, undistinguishable from one another. It took a while to recognize the one on the southern side of the street as the Royal Palace, the residence of the Savoy kings, now a museum housing the architectural, artistic and archeological heritage offices for the Liguria region. For a small fee, you can see a palace full of original furniture, priceless frescoes, art work and royal knickknacks, but sadly in need of tender, loving care. Some of the walls are chipped and are due for a fresh coat of paint, and the drapes are frayed and soiled. Still, the luxury of the House of Savoy is very much in evidence, especially in the awesome Hall of Mirrors and the Throne Room.

Across the street, there's another former palace occupied by the University of Genoa since 1634. I was admiring the marble lions at the foot of the main stairway when a student approached me asking for a contribution to the Communist Party. He began with the usual spiel about the workers this and the workers that but, after learning that I was from California, his concern for the proletariat turned to questions about the actresses on the popular syndicated television show, ``baywatch.''

If you continue walking toward the center of Genoa, you'll pass the Piazza della Fontane Marose, dominated by a building dating to the 15th Century, and spilling upon the Piazza de Ferrari, a clean, airy circle girded by neoclassical buildings holding the stock exchange, banks, an ornate theater and the Italian Navigation Building. Most of this square was heavily damaged by Allied bombing during the war, and it took years of meticulous work to restore its sparkle.

There are great cafes and (ITAL) gelaterias (uqTAL) under the arches of the buildings. Old women feeding pigeons and lovers sitting around the fountain give the place the sense of being in a time warp. From the Plaza de Ferrari, it's only a skip and a hop to the small, ivy-covered building that many historians claim was the dwelling of Domenico and Susanna Colombo, parents of the future explorer, and where Cristoforo spent his formative years. The Columbus house is an unremarkable structure from the Middle Ages, a brick-and-mortar house, typical of where a humble weaver would have lived, and that's how Domenico earned his living.

There is no doubt that Columbus was a child of Genoa. This is where he developed his keen eye for observation that was to serve him in later years. The details of his life, however, are shrouded in mystery and controversy. There are historians who have gone as far as to dismiss Genoa's claim and Columbus' Mediterranean roots. What cannot be dismissed are the documents held in the Columbus Room of the Genoa State Archives, a beautiful old palace (all bureaucratic offices here are housed in former palaces). It took a lot of coaxing and cajoling, some whining and lying, but a custodian finally showed me three letters written by Columbus from Seville in 1502, the year in which he was readying for his fourth and final voyage to the New World, plus a bragging book he kept in which he listed the titles he had received from the Spanish Crown.

In one of the documents, signed with his mystifying and weird signature, a pyramid of letters that has never been explained satisfactorily, Columbus offers one-tenth of his income to be held in trust by the Banco di San Giorgio for the benefit of the citizens of Genoa. ''Although my body is here (Seville), my heart is continuously there (Genoa),'' the admiral wrote.

Unfortunately, Columbus didn't leave much. He died penniless and in disgrace in Valladolid, Spain.

Genoa, however, prospered.

The Bank of St. George is still there in -- naturally -- a magnificent palace and the Columbus house is surrounded by modern buildings -- just an old house next to two of the city's most eminent landmarks: the Porta da Soprana and the ruins of the Monastery of St. Andrea, both already ancient when Columbus was born.

The Porta da Soprana is the most beautiful of the two gates remaining from the ancient walls. It's a massive, sturdy battlement, built in 1155 as a defense against the invading armies of Barbarossa. The ruins of the cloister are left over from when the monastery was moved to another location centuries ago. Walk through the gate and take any of the caruggi heading downhill toward the unseen waterfront and you'll experience a Genoese delight: being lost in an old city firmly planted in antiquity while getting a first-hand taste of its charm.

It was during one of these walks, two days after my arrival, that I came upon the Taverna I Tre Merli (Tavern of the Three Ravens), just off the Via Garibaldi in the Medieval District. It's a tavern in a 16th century building showing the wear and tear of the years. Bricks baked about the time when the Pilgrims were landing at Plymouth Rock peek out from peeling walls, as friendly waitresses serve traditional Ligurian dishes like (ITAL) pansotti alla salsa di noce (uqTAL), a thick tortellini with a creamy walnut sauce (uqTAL), or (ITAL) torta pasqualina (uqTAL), a pie of Swiss chard and artichokes.

Genoese cuisine is a bit different than in the rest of Italy, where pizzerias are as ubiquitous as Fiats. The Genoese prefer focaccia, a pizza with no sauce, filled with local delicacies and topped with cheese. After a meal like that you must walk a lot, and Genoa is the place to do it. On my first afternoon there, I finished lunch and walked down one of the caruggi that empties into a sunny square dominated by the Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, in the heart of the Medieval District. It's a mammoth church of alternating bands of black slate and white marble, a typical Ligurian architectural whim. I paid an admission fee and was given a guided tour of the cathedral that was built in 1099 and has undergone numerous restorations since.

If you're to accept such things, the guide will point out the chalice used in the Last Supper, the salver on which the head of John the Baptist was brought to Salome and the silver casket holding what's reputed to be the saint's ashes. The guide even pointed out a sliver of wood believed to have come from the true cross, which prompted a tourist to whisper that if you took all the pieces of the true cross from all the churches in Italy, there would be enough wood to build a fair-size house.

Tourist wisecracks aside, Genoa has a very impressive store of priceless works of art aside from religious relics, and one would be remiss not go to the Palazzo Rosso, a museum full of wonders, and to the Gesu Church to marvel at Rubens' ``The Circumcision of Jesus,'' a huge painting dominating the main altar and glowing with Rubens' gentle use of light, very similar to the light in northern Italy.

It's this light, unlike any other in the world, that one evening prompted me to make my way from my hotel through a series of tunnels carved under houses to the Largo della Zecca station to catch the funicular railroad to the top of Monte Righi, from where I'd been told there's an unhampered panoramic view of the bay.

The Zecca funicular is one of three in hilly Genoa. It leaves every 15 minutes climbing more than 1,000 feet to the crest from where you can see the full extent and rugged beauty of the Riviera stretching east and west. It's quite a climb, much like the funicular in Hong Kong's Victoria Peak and the view is just as stirring. From the top of the mountain you can see the old fortifications of the city and the layout of Genoa becomes clear. It's a city perched in peculiar layers and crisscrossed by tunnels, overpasses and public elevators. But ground level is where the city blossoms.

One afternoon, I hailed a taxi in the city center and headed for Boccadasse, an ancient fishing village only 15 minutes from Genoa but centuries behind in ambience. This sun-bathed suburb is far from the tourist path and full of friendly fishermen working on their boats, while children frolic on the rocky beach. Find a small (ITAL) trattoria (uqTAL) in any of the age-old pastel buildings facing the sea and order a cup of coffee or a glass of wine; the hours will evaporate as you bask in the town's radiance. If it were possible to shrink Boccadasse to fit in the palm of your hand, it would be as luscious as a Faberge egg.

During my days in Genoa, I always gravitated toward Boccadasse. There was an addictive quality about it that's difficult to pinpoint. Maybe it was the serenity, perhaps, just a feeling of contentment, a laid-back attitude that permeates its quaint alleys.

I never knew. All I knew was that when it was time to leave Genoa, as I waited for a train bound for Milan, I wanted to tell the people itching to make connections to the outlying Riviera towns about the wonders that laid hidden just beyond the station.

INCIDENTAL INTELLIGENCE

Genoa is a relatively simple destination to reach. Alitalia offers non-stop service from most major U.S. cities to Milan, as do other international carriers. Alitalia also offers six daily connecting flights from Milan to Genoa.

Train service to Genoa is excellent with trains leaving regularly from most Italian cities. Genoa is only one and a half hours from Milan by train and three hours from the French border.

Hotels in Genoa are sadly lacking. Among the good ones are the Hotel Savoia Majestic, Via Arsenale di Terra 5, tel. 010 261 641, from about $175 per night, double occupancy. The Columbus Sea Hotel, Via Milano 63, tel. 010 265 051, from around $130 double occupancy.

(Sergio Ortiz is a free-lance writer in Malibu, California.)

(1998, Sergio Ortiz. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.