Today you can again reach the Palazzo del Principe by sea, as was the custom long ago. The Doria Frigate, built to original sixteenth- seventeenth-century designs, links the Aquarium of Genoa with the Palace by sea.

Using these documents, a frigate has been constructed which can transport twenty passengers, similar to those employed by Andrea and Giovanni Andrea I, admirals for the Spanish crown in the sixteenth century. These craft, which were also used for military purposes, were chiefly designed to transport passengers in times of peace, and many important personages reached Palazzo Doria in this way.

The décor of the Frigate was based on studies of the pictures of similar boats in paintings and tapestries of the period, as well as the rarer examples still surviving. As was the custom at the time, the Frigate flies many flags: two green banners (the colour of the family), and two white ones emblazoned with the heraldic eagle of the Doria, and a broad rectangular standard. The “carriage” (the covered structure in the stern) is covered with a rich awning of crimson velvet, which reaches “train-like” down to the waves, inspired by the fittings described in sixteenth-century Doria inventories.