Perfect love. Who would reject it: as romantic and passionate as that first day, the butterflies in the stomach of first glances, enduring love, impervious to the passage of time and the forgetfulness of the mundane. Eternal, perhaps.

Yet here in Genoa it can be found. Because the Genoese, who deep down are incurable romantics, have even named a square and an alley in the historic center after it, a small corner between via degli Orefici and vico delle Vigne. Legend has it that, here, at the beginning of the 1500s, a platonic love affair formed between Louis XII, the King of France visiting the “Superba” and Tommasina Spinola, the young wife of a member of the city’s aristocracy. Among the many receptions organized by Genoese nobles to pay him homage, the king attended a ball where he met the gaze of Tommasina, a beautiful noblewoman with whom he was struck at first sight. She was married to Luca Battista Spinola, a descendant of one of the most powerful and influential families in the city, but the gods were kind and the timing generous, this happened in a period when it was acceptable for a noblewomen to indulge in a platonic, pure and chaste love and so this precious sentiment was able to flourish unchecked until the king’s return to France.

But vico and piazza dell'Amor Perfetto are only the first stop on a romantic journey that can include the small fishing village of Boccadasse. Here, it is said, hidden among the cluster of colored houses clinging to the rocks can be found the attic - overlooking the sea and the sky - where the cat in Gino Paoli's famous song once purred.

And finally, the day closes with a view of the city from Spianata Castelletto, as the sun sets on the slate roofs of the old city and seems to set them ablaze with a burning red glow, the last light of a day slips into night, a night that belongs only to lovers.