The Castello San Giorgio is the Genoese fortress that towers over La Spezia from the Poggio hill, above the old town, where the city was born. Inside, it holds the Formentini Archaeological Museum, with the mysterious statue-stelae of...
The Centro d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, or CAMeC, is La Spezia's museum of 20th-century art, on Piazza Cesare Battisti, a short walk from the pedestrian area of the center. It alternates the civic collections with temporary...
The Museo Civico Amedeo Lia is La Spezia's art gallery, on Via del Prione in the pedestrian center: in the rooms of a 17th-century convent it displays the collection Amedeo Lia donated to the city, paintings from the 13th to the 18th century,...
The Museo Civico Etnografico Giovanni Podenzana tells the story of peasant life in Lunigiana, between the Magra and Vara valleys, from the mid-18th century to the early 20th. It is on Via del Prione, in La Spezia's pedestrian center, in the old...
La Spezia's Seal Museum holds more than fifteen hundred seals, from the first stamps of the Fertile Crescent to Fabergé jewels: six thousand years of history, each just a few centimeters across. It is on Via del Prione, in the neo-medieval...
The Museo Tecnico Navale of the Italian Navy is the most important naval museum in Italy, in La Spezia, next to the main gate of the Arsenal. Ship models, figureheads, torpedoes and the assault craft of both world wars tell centuries of history...
The Ubaldo Formentini Civic Archaeological Museum is La Spezia's archaeology museum, inside the Castle of San Giorgio, on the hill above the old town where the city was born. It tells the story of the area from prehistory to the Middle Ages, with...
The Cathedral of Christ the King is La Spezia's cathedral: a huge round drum that dominates Piazza Europa from the top of a flight of steps. It was designed by the rationalist architect Adalberto Libera and was only finished in 1975.
From...
The abbey church of Santa Maria Assunta is the main church of the old town of La Spezia, in Piazza Giulio Beverini. It was the pro-cathedral of the diocese from 1929 to 1975. Inside it keeps a terracotta Coronation of the Virgin by Andrea della...
The Church of Santi Giovanni ed Agostino is the parish church of the Torretto district, in the heart of La Spezia's old town. Born as the oratory of a confraternity, it holds a 16th-century altarpiece by Bernardino Lanino and a dome covered in...
The Equestrian Monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi is the large bronze statue that towers over the Public Gardens, in the center of La Spezia. It is worth a stop for a rare detail: the horse is rearing and stands on its hind legs alone.
The...
The Church of Nostra Signora della Salute, also called the Madonna della Scorza, is the sanctuary of the Umbertino district, on Piazza Brin, in La Spezia. You can recognize it by its two bell towers with neo-Baroque domes.
The church was...
The Public Gardens are La Spezia's big park, between the old town and the sea: tree-lined avenues, plants of many species, monuments and a 19th-century bandstand.
The most eye-catching piece is the equestrian monument to Giuseppe...
The Palazzo delle Poste of La Spezia is the Futurist post office building on Piazza Verdi, in the city center: red brick, travertine, a clock tower and, hidden inside the tower, a large Futurist mosaic. It was designed by Angiolo Mazzoni and...
The church of Nostra Signora della Neve (Our Lady of the Snow) is a neo-Romanesque Salesian church on Viale Garibaldi, in the center of La Spezia, at the top of a great staircase. It was consecrated in 1901 and keeps on its high altar an ancient...
The church of Santo Stefano is an ancient parish church on the hill of Marinasco, in the northern part of La Spezia, with a terrace-like esplanade that looks over the city and the gulf. It is one of the five ancient pievi overlooking the Gulf of...
The Museo Nazionale dei Trasporti is La Spezia's train museum, next to the Centrale station, in the old railway buildings of the Squadra Rialzo on Via Fossitermi. Steam locomotives, carriages and model railways make it a stop for families and...
Piazza del Mercato, that is Piazza Cavour, is La Spezia's covered market, in the city center. Above the stalls stretches a roof shaped like a wave, meant to recall the sea, one of the city's symbols.
In the middle, two glass structures...
The Naval Military Arsenal of La Spezia is the Navy's great base in the heart of the city, an area of almost 90 hectares between the old town and the gulf. It is a military zone, but it made modern La Spezia, and next to the main entrance there...
The Diocesan Museum of La Spezia is a small museum of sacred art on Via del Prione, in the heart of the old town. It collects paintings, silverware and liturgical objects from the churches of the diocese, between the Gulf, the Riviera and the...
The Sanctuary of the Madonna dell'Olmo is a neoclassical church 280 meters above the Gulf of La Spezia, on the slopes of Monte Santa Croce above the village of Fabiano. Every year in May a pilgrimage climbs up here.
The heart of the...
The Church of San Venerio in Migliarina, the ancient parish church of the gulf, is a small Romanesque stone church in the Pieve district of La Spezia. It is one of the oldest buildings on the gulf, standing on a site that has been inhabited for...
The Palazzo Comunale of La Spezia is the town hall overlooking Piazza Europa, the same square as the Cathedral of Christ the King. It is a stern rationalist building from 1933, built as the Casa dei Fasci Lunensi and later turned into the seat of...
The Teatro Civico is the most important theater in La Spezia, in the old town, on Piazza Mentana. Outside it has an Art Deco facade with three arches; inside, a hall where, with the dome open, you can watch the stars.
The opening dome is...
Villa Marmori is an Art Nouveau villa from the 1920s on Via XX Settembre, in the centre of La Spezia: one of the most successful, if late, examples of the Liberty style in the city. Today scales and arpeggios drift out of its windows, because it...
The Scalinate of La Spezia are more than twenty historic stairways climbing from the centre to the hills behind the gulf: a way, on foot and a little tiring, to discover the city from above and its less-trodden corners.
The oldest follow...
Piazza Garibaldi is the pedestrian square in the centre of La Spezia where Via del Prione, Via Fiume, Via Spallanzani, Via Garibaldi and Via Torino meet: a crossroads for strolling, with a white marble fountain in the middle and Art Nouveau...
The Monument to Domenico Chiodo is the marble statue in Piazza Chiodo, in front of the entrance to the La Spezia Arsenal, honouring the officer and engineer who designed it: the man to whom the modern city owes, in large part, its very...
The Evangelical Baptist Church of La Spezia is the Protestant church on Via Milano, in the city centre: a soaring building with neo-Gothic decoration and perhaps the oldest Baptist church in Italy, with a story intertwined with the birth of...
Palazzo Maggiani is one of the most distinctive Art Nouveau buildings in La Spezia, in full view on the corner of Corso Cavour and Viale Aldo Ferrari: a corner building with different decoration on every floor, well worth a stop to gaze...
The Teatro Trianon is a small Art Nouveau theater in the Torretto district, in the historic heart of La Spezia, on Via Manzoni. Built in 1907 for light entertainment, it is back to hosting theater and cultural events after decades of...
Palazzo Castagnola is the oldest of the Castagnola marquises' residences, in the historic center of La Spezia, a stone's throw from Piazza Sant'Agostino and Via del Prione. The 20th century changed its outside; inside, it keeps its noble...
Palazzo Doria is the 17th-century residence of the Doria family in the historic center of La Spezia, along the old alley of Via del Prione, where it meets Via Sapri and Via Gioberti. Remodeled several times, it is still a fine example of a...
The Castello di Coderone, or Rocca di Coderone, is the medieval fortress built by the Republic of Genoa on a hill east of Biassa, the village in the hills above La Spezia. It tells a chapter of the long struggle between Genoa and Pisa.
The...
The Church of Saints Andrew and Cyprian is the church of La Spezia's Sant'Andrea civic hospital, on Via Vittorio Veneto. Built in 1932 to a design by Franco Oliva, the architect who shaped the city in the early 20th century, it is worth a stop...
Palazzo Crozza is an elegant 19th-century mansion on Corso Cavour, in the center of La Spezia, home to the Ubaldo Mazzini Civic Library. Built as a noble family's country villa, it is worth a stop for its frescoed rooms, now part of the...
The Palazzo del Governo, also called the Palazzo della Provincia, is the seat of the Prefecture and the Province of La Spezia. Built in 1928 to a design by Franco Oliva, it is a compact, solemn official building, eclectic with Deco touches, worth...
The Fontana delle Voci is the sculpture-fountain at the center of the gardens of Piazza Brin, in La Spezia's Umbertino district. The work of Mirko Basaldella, it is a mosaic totem seven and a half meters tall, worth the detour for its colors and...
Corso Cavour is one of La Spezia's main streets: a 19th-century avenue parallel to Via del Prione that runs from the sea side across the center to the Umbertino district. It is the right place for shopping and, farther up, for a stroll among Art...
Palazzo Boletto is a large Art Nouveau palazzo in the center of La Spezia, built in 1927 to a design by the architect Vincenzo Bacigalupi. It closes off its square on the sea side and is worth a look for its richly decorated facades.
The...