The caruggi — Genoese for "lanes" — are the defining experience of the old city. These medieval passages, some barely a metre wide, run between buildings that rise five and six storeys in near-darkness. They are genuinely disorienting; the logic of the grid you came from dissolves within seconds. Give up on navigation, follow the sound of voices, and trust that the city will eventually reveal itself.
The caruggi are a working neighbourhood, not a tourist reconstruction. Fishmongers, fabric sellers, pharmacies, and cheap restaurants coexist with the boutiques that have recently moved in. The area has a reputation for edginess at night that is only partially deserved — it is not dangerous by any international standard, but it is urban in a way that polished Italian tourist centres rarely are. The best time to wander is late afternoon, when the light falls at angles between the buildings and the food shops open again after the midday break.