The Galata Museo del Mare is located in the area between the Aquarium and the Maritime Station and is housed in the oldest building of the old Darsena, once the Arsenal of the Republic of Genoa. This is where, from 1500 onwards, the galleys of the Genoese fleet were built and armed.
It is currently the largest maritime museum in the Mediterranean and the 12,000 sqm exhibition, spread over four floors, has as its main theme the history of the vital relationship between man and sea.
The itinerary follows four ages of seafaring: the age of the oar, experienced on the galleys and in the ancient dockyard, the age of sailing, dominated by vessels and later clippers, the age of steam, which marked the birth and affirmation of steamships, and the age of the great Italian transatlantic migrations and today's migrations on makeshift boats.

 

The “visitor-actor” can board the galley, to explore its interior and discover the life of forced slaves; experience first-hand life on board the submarine Nazario Sauro and continue the travel experience with the great ocean crossing of Italian migrants to the United States, Brazil and Argentina and today's immigrants in Italy.

 

MEI, Museo Nazionale dell'Emigrazione Italiana (National Museum of Italian Emigration), an entirely multimedia museum dedicated to the story of Italian migrations to the world. The visit path winds through 16 areas that retrace the stories of migrations from the Unification of Italy to contemporary times, through a chronological order enriched by thematic insights.

The Museum proposes to the public, framed within a historiographical framework, the life stories of the protagonists of emigration: the experiences of individuals are proposed to the visitor through primary sources such as autobiographies, diaries, letters, photographs, newspapers digitised and re-elaborated thanks to multimedia stations, immersive installations and actor reconstructions.

Each area of the museum introduces a period of human mobility, from prehistoric to medieval and modern times, well before the concept of “borders” became widespread. Italian emigration has not only had its destination abroad and does not only belong to the past. This is why the museum also tells the story of internal emigration, declined in its two main directions, from the countryside to the city and from the South to the North, and contemporary emigration, with the forms it has taken after
1973, the year of the epochal change, in which Italy went from being a country of emigration to a country of immigration, up to the first decades of the new millennium when Italian emigration started to grow again.

Full: € 25
Children 7/17 years : €21
children 0/6 years: free

Entrance ticket Galata Museo del Mare, submarine Nazario Sauro and entrance ticket Museo Nazionale dell'Emigrazione Italiana MEI.

Everything not expressly indicated in “the fee includes”.

Opening hours Galata Sea and Submarine Museum Nazario Sauro

Daily from 10:00 to 19:00 (ticket office closes at 18:00)

Check the official website of the Galata Museo del Mare for opening hours before planning your visit.

 

MEI,  Museo Nazionale dell'Emigrazione Italiana

1 June - 30 September
Tuesday to Friday 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.
1 October - 31 May
Tuesday to Friday 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday 11 a.m. - 7 p.m.

Closed: Mondays, 25 and 31 December
Where: Piazza della Commenda 1

NB: the ticket office closes one hour earlier.