Zoagli

Zoagli is a small coastal town in the Metropolitan City of Genoa, on the Gulf of Tigullio between Chiavari and Rapallo. It is historically known as a centre of Genoese silk-velvet weaving: Genoese merchants brought the technique back from the Near East in the Middle Ages, and weavers relocated from Genoa to Zoagli to escape the city's strict guild rules, combining weaving with farming and fishing. By the Renaissance Zoagli had become the hub of the velour de Gênes trade — the damasks, velvets, and silks that dressed popes, kings, and queens and furnished palaces including Hampton Court — and by the 19th century around 1,200 looms, mostly in private homes, were producing what was then the world's most expensive cloth. The tradition survives on a small scale today through workshops still weaving silk velvet by hand on antique wooden looms.

Zoagli is on the Genoa–La Spezia coastal railway line, between Chiavari and Rapallo, and on the coastal SS1 (Via Aurelia) road.

The town centre is small and walkable along the seafront.

Workshops still weaving traditional Genoese silk velvet by hand on antique looms are Zoagli's most distinctive sight, a living link to the town's centuries as a centre of the velour de Gênes trade.

Handwoven silk velvet, continuing Zoagli's historic craft, is produced and sold locally by the town's remaining weaving workshops.

Zoagli sits on the Gulf of Tigullio between Chiavari and Rapallo, both a short hop away on the same coastal rail line.