As well as being a fishing village, in the past Vernazzola was an important landing ground from where it was possible to climb the Sturla valley, on through the quartiere of Bavari and into the upper Bisagno valley. Immediately behind the houses on the shoreline there once stood a Dominican convent with an adjoining hospital for travellers. In time, behind the coastal buildings there gradually arose grand villas of the aristocratic families of Genoa, and finally, in the early twentieth century, luxurious Art Nouveau villas. However, like Boccadasse, the village still preserves its ancient dwellings, the network of old streets and an atmosphere of a bygone era. Some of the streets around Vernazzola have characteristic names inspired by ancient classical mythology: Argonauti, Giasone, Icarus, Pelio, Urania. These names were chosen at the request of the last mayor of San Francesco d'Albaro, a passionate lover of the classical world, shortly before the annexation of the town to Genoa, in the second half of the 18th Century. Along the road that leads around Capo di Santa Chiara, a distinctive vantage point dominated by the medieval styled Turcke castle, there are some eighteenth-century villas, the Augustinian convent and the church of Santa Chiara, founded in the sixteenth century. Boccadasse is located immediately to the west of Capo di Santa Chiara. Although it’s part of the district of Albaro it can be considered the last of the small fishing villages of the area of Sturla. Sturla is bisected by the Sturla river. The river is ten kilometers long and rarely dry. It starts in the districts of San Desidario and Bavari where it runs through a narrow valley between the slopes of Monte Fasce and Monte Ratti, then coming to the area of Borgoratti. On the way it collects the waters of tributaries such as the Pomà river, the Canè river, the Penego river and other smaller streams. Another stream in the area is the Vernazza river, now completely channeled into tunnels, which flows from the area of the ancient Roman road, Via Aurelia, which is also known as Vernazza, in the district of San Martino, through the small valley containing the Martin Luther King high school, passes under Piazza Sturla and finally flows into the sea in an outlet in Vernazzola. Considered by many to be the finest beach in Genoa, Sturla beach spreads out to either side of the mouth of the Sturla river.