About this journey

Genova Brignole station, where the journey begins, opened its current building in 1905 for the Genoa international exposition. Designed by engineer Giovanni Ottino, the renaissance-style structure extends 105 metres along the platform frontage and today handles around 60,000 passengers per day, making it the second largest station in the city. From here the train heads southeast along the Genoa–Pisa railway, the line that has connected the Ligurian coast since the nineteenth century.

The route reaches Sestri Levante, whose railway history reflects successive rounds of engineering adaptation. The line first arrived here on 23 November 1870, when Sestri became a temporary terminus; it was extended to La Spezia in 1874, ending that role. The current station building opened on 27 August 1924, relocated further inland on a larger site with several platforms — replacing an earlier timber structure that stood closer to the sea. The Chiavari–Riva Trigoso section through the station was doubled in 1890 to meet growing traffic. Electrification brought further change: three-phase current at 3600 V and 16⅔ Hz was activated in 1926, before conversion to the standard 3000 V DC system completed in 1947–1948. The journey moves from Brignole's grand Edwardian terminus to a station that has been rebuilt, re-electrified, and progressively reshaped across more than a century of service on this coast.