The city of towers
In a wide, fertile plain at the mouth of the Centa river, Albenga is one of the most interesting historic towns on the Ligurian coast, founded by the Ligurian Ingauni people and then an important Roman town, Albingaunum. In the Middle Ages it was a free commune and a rival of Genoa, and its noble families built tall brick towers, many of which still rise above the roofs of the historic centre, giving Albenga the nickname of "city of the hundred towers". The centre, with its regular plan inherited from the Roman city, has narrow streets, palaces and small squares around the Cathedral of San Michele, with its tall bell tower, and the town hall.
Next to the cathedral stands the most precious monument of the town: the Baptistery, built in the fifth century, one of the most important early Christian monuments in northern Italy, with a decagonal exterior and an octagonal interior, which preserves in a small apse a precious mosaic with the monogram of Christ surrounded by twelve doves, symbols of the apostles, in blue and white on a dark background. The Roman Naval Museum, in the Palazzo Peloso Cepolla, displays hundreds of amphorae recovered from a large Roman ship that sank off Albenga in the first century BC, loaded with wine. The plain of Albenga is famous for its vegetables and aromatic herbs, such as the purple artichoke, the "trombetta" courgette and the asparagus, and for the white wine Pigato. In front of the coast lies the island of Gallinara, a nature reserve.
Tip: a single ticket covers the Baptistery and the city museums; taste the vegetable pies and the Pigato in the osterie of the centre.
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