With well over one million visitors per year, the Genoa Aquarium (Acquario di Genova) is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Italy, the second-most visited in Europe and one among the first ten in the world.
There are full reconstructions of marine environments, both Mediterranean and tropical, as well as river, rain forest and Antarctic habitats.
Coming up close to sharks, dolphins, seals and penguins, as if you could almost touch them, is a breath-taking experience you can enjoy thanks to the Aquarium’s oceanic tanks.
Among the various animal species, the Aquarium is home to many land and river reptiles, amphibians, as well as humming-birds, all hosted inside as many as 90 different eco-systems, where visitors can both wonder at nature and the sea, and learn how important it is to respect and protect them.
A two-and-a-half-hour tour of the Aquarium will allow visitors to see and find out everything about all animals - many of whom were born here.
Also, every year since the first opening, new space and species have been added, so that visitors have the chance not only to discover and get to know the animals, but sometimes they are even allowed to stroke them, as at the sting-ray tank.
The Aquarium is not only entertainment and education; it also hosts a research centre for the protection and safeguard of the environment and of underwater eco-systems and habitats at large.