Albenga. February 2019
After my kind of letdown with Alassio [see: Alassio], I had higher hopes for Albenga. Travel-related writing on the internet indicated that Albenga was a gem with an intact medieval core. I was curious if the hype was going to match what I found.
The train station was closer to the coast than the old city, so I had a short walk ahead of me. Albenga was part of the Italian Riviera but not a built up row of apartments like Alassio. I wasn't there for the beach anyway since I had just been. I walked toward what was the centro storico on the map. I got so used to city walls in Italy, that I was expecting to be confronted with some kind of fortification defining the old city center. In fact, Alassio was described as a "walled-city". Instead, I approached what looked to be the windowless back of a long line of buildings with one, low-key arched entryway. It was not impressive whatsoever and most certainly not a city wall.
I walked through the archway.
Some incredible spaces have very unassuming entrances like the Plaza Mayor of Madrid or Place des Vosges in Paris. One walks through a very normal opening and exits into a totally different realm. This was Albenga. Outside of the archway was a typical Italian city, old in its own right. On the other side was a maze of tightly packed old buildings from centuries earlier. It was not a huge part of the city, but "intact" was the defining word. Bordered by a small river and three main streets, that little square of buildings was like entering Harry Potter's Diagon Alley where one passed from reality into a magical realm.
The biggest problem in medieval cities with multi-story buildings is that they are claustrophobic without viewpoints to appreciate any given building. Every single structure in the city was built right up to the street and to the next building. It made me understand why there was a later pushback in European city planning that required wider roads, squares, and circles. Those inventions made a city more "breathable". I tried to imagine a large-scale city as packed at Albenga - not a pleasant prospect. No wonder fires and disease were so feared.
Temporary cooped up feelings aside, Albenga was amazing and probably accurately reflected Italy before even the Renaissance. Finding a whole section of town without one modern building was actually notable, even in Italy, and the oldest building in Albenga was from the 5th century! Most of the old part of town was from the 15th and 16th centuries, however.
Albenga's narrow streets offer their own intrigue and deserve some extended exploration. One of the main streets is Via delle Medaglie d'Oro which runs on a north-east to south-west axis before exiting the medieval area of the town via an archway. Taking any of the alleyways that lead off the main streets is sure to lead you to another historic sight such as the Piazza dei Leoni just behind the Cathedral, so-named after the three stone statues of lions that were brought to Albenga from Rome in 1608.
Albenga's medieval core and my coffee on the sea in Alassio made that long train ride up from Genoa worth it. Nothing makes for a better travel day than walking through a door and finding something amazingly unexpected.
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