Genoa or Lake Como?

What is your previous stop?

Verona is the stop before this.

Then doing just Lake Como will be easier from a transportation perspective. 3-4 nights in, for example, Varenna would be perfect. If you have more than 4 nights, you could add time on Lake Garda, in Bergamo, or in Milan if you do not go there already.

I would eliminate Genoa regardless. There are few cities in Italy as ugly as Genoa.

Imagine a country where even the ugliest city can boast an Unesco Heritage site and one of the largest medieval historic centers in Europe. It makes you think.

My husband and I certainly enjoyed our 3 nights in Genoa and our 3 day trips there while we were on other trips. We've never been to Lake Como, but we don't go to Italy for scenery --- everybody goes to Italy for different things. I guess we can take a little "ugly." I'd go to Genoa tomorrow just to eat pesto.

Cattedrale di San Lorenzo, San Matteo, and San Donato are all interesting churches, if you like churches (I do).

The narrow, steep-walled caruggi are full of full of food shops and streetfood places. Go on a food tour or just eat in any of the wonderful restaurants.

Around Piazza de Ferrari you can see the Opera house and the Doge’s Palace.

See the art in the Palazzo Bianco museum and the rooftop view.

Tour the greenhouses of a basil farm on the steep hillside above the sea.

The monumental cemetery of Staglieno north of the city is great if you enjoy giant, creepy, melodramatic and often very weird sculptures thickly coated with gray dust like we do (however, the monumental cemetery in Milan is the very best).

The OP asked for an opinion and I gave mine.

Yes the pesto is good in Genoa, but so is the pesto at the Olive Garden restaurants. My opinion of course.

De gustibus non disputandum est.

Given the fact that your previous stop is Verona, Lago di Como would seem like a good choice. The small town of Varenna in the mid-lake area is a big favourite with many here (including me). It's only a bit more than an hour from Milano Centrale and there are some nice hotels there. It's a good place for exploring the mid-lake area and places like the posh town of Bellagio, which is about a 20 minute ferry ride from Varenna. There's also Menaggio across the lake.

Genoa would be much, much improved if the authorities teared down the terrible 'Sopraelevata' highway cutting the city from its harbor - similar to the former Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco. In general it is a city where you have to dig a little bit more than usual to find all the beauty.

Edit: I still maintain my opinion that lake Como is the logical choice here!

I agree with Ken^
And Lake Como (specifically Varenna) is everything you want it to be, including restaurants with good pesto.

If you don't have a reason to choose Genoa, then skip it.

Genoa may have some interesting worthy sights, but overall it would not make my top 20 destinations in Italy nor my top 20 most beautiful places in Italy. In this case we are also talking about someone making the trek all the way from Verona, almost 4 hours away by train or car, and planning to go back to lake Como later (another 4 hours), so the choice of visiting Genoa doesn’t even make sense from the logistical point of view. Lake Como would be my only choice in this case.