Finale Ligure attractions

Three nuclei, two castles, a Spanish fortress and some of the oldest burials in Europe.

Above the borgo. Castel Gavone, seat of the Del Carretto from the twelfth century, largely demolished by Genoa in 1715 but keeping the Torre dei Diamanti — keeled and rusticated, of about 1490, inspired by Francesco di Giorgio, and now reachable by lift. Beside it Castel San Giovanni, a Spanish fortress of 1642–43.

On the seafront. The basilica collegiata di San Giovanni Battista at Finalmarina, the imposing parish church of the comune's patron.

Under the Caprazoppa. The caverna delle Arene Candide, which produced the burial of the Giovane Principe, dead about 26,000 years before present — one of the oldest Palaeolithic tombs in Europe.

Elsewhere in the comune. The abbazia di Santa Maria di Finalpia, built in the sixteenth century for Olivetan monks; the convent complex of San Francesco, first built in 1582 on a pre-existing medieval pieve; the abandoned twelfth-century church of San Cipriano at Calvisio Vecchia with its Romanesque bell tower in Pietra di Finale; and Castrum Perticae, cited in Frederick Barbarossa's diploma of 1162.

And two places with their own pages here. Finalborgo, the walled medieval capital of the marquisate — its basilica of San Biagio, its Santa Caterina convent with the archaeological museum and its surviving gates are treated there. And Varigotti, the frazione towards Noli, famous for its beach and for the Saracen-style fishermen's houses at the water's edge.