Albenga, the baptistery that spans fifteen centuries

While the western Ligurian Riviera fills with beach umbrellas and seaside promenades, you need only slip in among the medieval towers of Albenga's old town to find silence again. Here, beside the cathedral of San Michele, hides one of the oldest and least talked-about monuments in Liguria: the Early Christian Baptistery, a building on a polygonal plan whose origins reach back to late antiquity, when Albenga was an important Roman and later Christian centre.

You enter almost on tiptoe. The interior is intimate, marked out by niches and arches, and the light filters discreetly onto the walls. What most catches the eye is the apse mosaic, with its symbols and figures on a deep blue ground, a rare testimony to the mosaic art of those distant centuries. There are no queues, none of the chatter of the great sites: often you have the room almost to yourself, time enough to lift your eyes and let the details emerge slowly.

The fine thing about Albenga is that the baptistery does not stand alone. Around it spreads an old town of red brick, narrow alleys and noble towers, crossed by few passers-by even in high season. A visit here means slowing down: a stop at the naval museum or among the workshops, a plate of honest Ligurian cooking, an aimless stroll through the medieval grid. This is slow travel, the kind that leaves room for the place itself.

To savour it properly, it is best to avoid the height of the beach summer. The shoulder seasons, with their soft light and mild air, offer an almost empty town and a baptistery to contemplate at leisure. A small detour from the coast that is worth every minute stolen from the beach.

Related guides: Instead of the Cinque Terre: colourful Ligurian villages without the crush.

Getting there

Albenga is well connected: it has its own station on the Genoa–Ventimiglia railway line and is easily reached by car via the A10 motorway (the Autostrada dei Fiori). The reference airport is Genoa. The Early Christian baptistery is in the heart of the old town, next to the cathedral.

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