Sharp clear colors, no uncertain shades, which set themselves against the background one at a time. Above all the blue of the sea. The sea: once the cradle of seafarers' and merchants' dreams, or bringer of storms, pirate ships, calamities; an irresistible attraction today for hundreds of thousands of tourists who pour down there, on shore, every year, into the more renowned resorts of the Riviera dei Fiori: Santo Stefano al Mare, Riva Ligure, Arma di Taggia, Ospedaletti. At the center, Sanremo, floral kaleidoscope, fashionable and attractive township, with its gardens blossoming with every color and species, even the most exotic, which feels at ease here just like any tourist on holiday. Then the embrace of a hilly amphitheater in blossom, colors mitigated by the transparency of the greenhouses; sea blooms, sought-after and admired throughout the world, grow here. Cleaving to the lower ledges, the course hues of the stonework of ancient and silent towns, covered passage-ways, alleys leading goodness knows where, town walls still intact, etched fortresses, medieval gateways, remarkable churches: Taggia, a jewel case of art; Ceriana, in the Val Armea, with its ancient houses imbuing up the cliff; Bajardo, which rose again after an earthquake together with its great traditions, up to Triora, the chief town of the Alta Valle Argentina. Beyond the town of the witches, man gradually gives way to the exuberant nature, to the intense green of pasture-lands.
The highest peak of Liguria is no longer far away: on Monte Saccarello, at 2,200 metres, it is possible to go skiing in winter. Monesi, a winter holiday weekend paradise for Ligurians and others alike, is at that level. Who would have ever imagined being able to pursue winter sports so near the blue of the sea?
SanremoThere is nothing better than the sea for embracing Sanremo and its surroundings in a complete panoramic view: from this position the town seems to stand out at the center of a vast inlet bordered on the east by Capo Verde and to the west by Capo Nero. The ancient heart of Sanremo, the La Pigna neighborhood, dating back to the year one thousand has remained practically intact with its enchanting web of steep winding alleys, clinging to the hill, and watched over by the baroque profile of the Santuario della Costa shrine. Hence one's gaze turns to the coastline and meets the modern town, built between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries on the wave of the "fin de siecle" tourist boom: Sanremo's belle epoque is still discernible today in the elegant buildings, the neat villas, parks and gardens with their luxuriant vegetation luckily saved from the expansion of the built-up areas. It was the climate, unusually mild, that attracted the first V.I.P. tourists, nobility and sovereigns, from all over Europe to this area during the past century.
The weather, perpetually favorable, thanks to that considerable mountain range beyond the sea (Monte Bignone, the highest peak, almost reaches 1,300 meters) which seems created especially to protect the coastal area from the cold winds blowing from the north. Thus it never rains at Sanremo (750 millimeters rainfall per annum). The days are almost always sunny and the mean temperature is particularly mild and constant: 10 degrees C in winter, 23 in summer with a range of just 14.4 degrees C between the coldest month, January and the hottest one, August; an ideal premise for making Sanremo the capital of all-season holidays.
Recent statistics speak clearly: the town has more than one hundred hotels and annual visitor presence's are constantly in excess of one million. Tourist attractions are not lacking and Sanremo is open throughout the year. Sport facilities abound and are well equipped, especially the golf-links and the horse-riding center.
There are as many as two marinas, the Porto Vecchio and the modern Portosole. For those who like shopping, the downtown streets suit them down to a tee, a parade of typical shops and fashionable "boutiques". On Tuesday and Saturday mornings the practically inescapable trip is the gaily-colored itinerant market in the zone of Piazza Eroi Sanremesi, just a short walk from the San Siro Cathedral.
Leader among the attractions which have now become institutional is the Casino' (pictured above) (360 thousand visitors per annum, with its traditional green tables, but also with the innovative electronic slot-machines in perfect Las Vegas style). Numerous and frequent, besides, are the important events: for entertainment, film and writers' festivals, concert and theatre seasons, fashion parades, gala evenings and society elite; for sports, sailing and rowing regattas, world-class car, cycling, motorboat racing competitions, bowling and international tennis, golf and minigolf tournaments; for business tourism, exhibitions and fairs, congresses, seminars and roundtables; for culture, meetings with writers, literary Tuesdays, art reviews; for light music, the now justifiably famous Songwriters Festival, the Tenco Award, the Sanremo Imagine Jazz and the Sanremo Blues events and, above all, the Festival of the Italian Song, now known as "The Festival", which is constantly renewed in its formula since - on that far off 29th January 1951 - Nunzio Filogamo, the first compere, announced the winner Nilla Pizzi with her song "Grazie dei Fiori".
The flowers, yes, the flowers: in Sanremo, because of the unparalleled climate, many species of plants and flowers from all over the world feel at home wherefore Sanremo is able to boast beautiful parks and gardens richly endowed in vegetation remarkable and unique in its composition. It is the floricultural sector that benefits from this unusual situation: the industry in this area is served by two thousand growers, one thousand forwarders, two hundred cooperatives. A thriving reality under everyone's eyes, it suffices to look at the glass-covered hills surrounding Sanremo, a landscape of squared and dazzling greenhouses, complete with the cylindrical tanks that collect the water used for irrigation. Tourism, flower-growing, Casino': three important items for the local economy. The municipal territory of Sanremo extends over 54.68 s.q.km. (of which only 5.5 are urbanized) and include five hamlets: Bussana, Poggio, Verezzo, San Romolo and Coldirodi.
The City and ArtSanremo, capital of the Riviera dei Fiori, through its floral style reveals its most intense and genuine artistic expression. It is in fact the Art Nouveau style, as a first impression, which characterizes the town, with its great hotels, its sumptuous villas, its monumental Casino', inaugurated in 1905. During the "belle epoque" period, Sanremo experienced an moment of great building expansion. A few facts testify to this "boom": 190 villas and 25 hotels were built during the period ranging from 1874 to 1906. Nowadays, the end use of some of the more luxurious hotels has changed but they have lost nothing of their charm: the splendid Bellevue Hotel is now the Town Hall, while the Tourist Promotion Board occupies the former Riviera Palace Hotel, built in 1903. Abundance then of Art Nouveau and eclecticism, another reigning style of the "fin de siecle" period. All but eclectic, in spite of its appearance, is the Russian Orthodox Church (see picture above) dedicated to Christ the Redeemer and to Saint Catherine, a decidedly eccentric monument and consequently among the most photographed throughout Sanremo. The church, however, is not just an attraction. At the close of the nineteenth century, the Russian community (just as those, of France, Britain and Germany) was very numerous in Sanremo thanks, in particular, to czarina Maria Alexandrovna who, an enthusiastic guest, "sponsored" this ligurian locality in the noble circles of her country. Completed in 1913, this church, which is deliberately reminiscent in its exterior forms of the St. Basil Cathedral in Moscow, is still open for worship, but most of all it is a tourist attraction.
One must go to the center of the town to find works of art and the more ancient buildings such as the splendid Borea d'Olmo Palace situated in Corso Matteotti at no. 143. This building, erected during the late Quattrocentro, is still the property of the noble Borea family of Venetian origin (the family name appears to derive from the Italian term "bora", an impetuous wind which blows from the east) on which the Savoys conferred the title of Marchesi dell'Olmo.
The piano nobile, or main floor, open to the public, houses the Sanremo Civic Museum which is divided into three sections: the archeological section, the bequest (paintings and engravings) by the poet Renzo Laurano, the Garibaldian relics (the leader's letters and personal objects) formerly belonging to the collection of Caroline Phillipson, an English noblewoman friend of Garibaldi. Besides the exhibitions, worthy of especial attention are the frescoed vaults of the halls. The late seventeenth-century paintings are works by Giovanni Battista Merano (1632-1698).
The principal sacred building in Sanremo is the San Siro Cathedral (see picture above), built in the XII century in the Roman Gothic style on the pattern of the San Michele Cathedral of Albenga. Restructured during the baroque period, the church was returned, between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to its original form, exception being made however for the bell-tower which, demolished by the Genoese in 1753, was rebuilt in an inexplicably pseudo-baroque style.
The bas-relief decorating the side door on the left is the most ancient element of the building. It represents a paschal lamb between two palms and dates back, perhaps, to the XI century. Within the basilica, the great eighteenth century wooden Crocifisso, a work by Anton Maria Maragliano.
The right-hand chapel, that of the Blessed Sacrament, has an important Renaissance sculpture of the Gaggini school, the marble wall shrine and, in the left-hand chapel, the stupendous statue, again a work by Maragliano, dedicated to the Madonna del Rosario. Along the right-hand aisle there is the black Crocifisso the work of an unknown author, the support over the centuries of the Sanremo community in adverse moments. The San Giovanni Baptistry, alongside the basilica, dates back to the baroque period (1688) and preserves an eighteenth century painting, the Comunione della Maddalena by Orazio de Ferrari. Especially esteemed by the people of Sanremo, is the Ciapella Tower, a massive construction with one meter thick walls. The tower, formerly part of the VI century town walls, is in Piazza Eroi, in the town center, just a few steps from "Pigna", the medieval Sanremo borough extending up the hillside, embraced by walls, gateways and towers, with its buildings of rough-hewn stone, rich with columns, carved portals and arches linking the houses together.
They call it "La Pigna" by way of its characteristic form of a pine cone, with its houses clinging to the hillside to form a scaled agglomerate which recalls to mind, really, the appearance of a pine cone. La Pigna, the ancient nucleus of Sanremo, was founded around the year one thousand, thence constantly strengthened until the sixteenth century to protect it from the raids by barbaric pirates. This historic neighborhood of Sanremo is a mysterious and attractive universe, made up of winding alleys, small squares in an almost unreal silence, covered passageways, buttress arrangements propping up the ancient houses. The gates still visible are two: Porta Santo Stefano and Porta San Giuseppe. The first, of the IV century, is in the Gothic style, while the San Giuseppe gate dates back to the XVI century. Alongside the latter is a fountain decorated with a stone pine cone of clear reference. Outside, above the gate, is a trapdoor arrangement with three outlets. Water and boiling oil were poured therefrom onto assailants. From the San Giuseppe gate it is possible to tackle the climb (le rive) along a stretch of the remaining walls. The occasion is rare also for reaching a remarkable panoramic point. Beyond the Santo Stefano gate, it is best to continue to the left along the attractive covered street (Rivolte di San Sebastiano). The path ends in the Oratorio dei Dolori square the name of which derives from the Confraternity which, in 1762, occupied the ancient holy building. At the entrance to the oratory, protected by a porch, an inscription dated 1642 warns: "It is forbidden to urinate or (leave?) filth under this vault under penalty of four lire", specifying that informers, if any, need not fear retaliation on the part of guilty parties inasmuch as the name of the informer "will be kept secret". In Via Palma, the street on the western side of La Pigna, at number 21, will be found the ancient home of the Manara family, "the best home in Sanremo in 1533", chosen during that year to offer hospitality to a Pope, Paul III. Another great guest of this Riviera town, Napoleon Bonaparte, stayed, instead, in 1794, at the palace of the noble Sapia Rossi family, at number 18 Via Monta which rises, from the gate of the same name, to Via Palma. At the top of the hill, La Pigna leaves space to the unmistakable mass of the Madonna della Costa, as the sanctuary is known here in Sanremo. This XVII century building which has represented over the centuries a sure reference point for seafarers approaching the city, preserves in its interior (sumptuously decorated with marble and stucco works) a number of wooden statues by Maragliano, paintings by Domenico Fiasella, Giulio Cesare Procaccini, Bartolomeo Guidobono. In a dominating position over the high altar is the oval oil painting attributed to Nicolo da Voltri.
Bel Respiro, Vista Lieta, Mirasole, Rondinella: it might seem almost a nonsense verse, perhaps a magic formula. Instead, these are the names of some of the most beautiful villas built in Corso degli Inglesi, in Sanremo, astride the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; buildings of refined elegance, surrounded by the greenery of flourishing vegetation. Still today these fascinating homes are the residences of private families and visits are, therefore, not possible.
Even so it is worthwhile to take a walk along the road to be able, at least, to enjoy the atmosphere of other times recalled to mind by the unusual background. Here then is the eclectic-neo renaissance style of Villa Bel Respiro, the seat today of the Istituto Sperimentale per la Floricoltura; thence, at n. 470, is Castello Devachan which, in 1920, was the seat of the Conferenza Internazionale degli Stretti. If Villa Virginia (at n. 452) is a fine example of Liberty-style architecture, Villa Fiorentina (at n. 450) is inspired by the Tuscan Renaissance and is characterized by rough-hewn stone, timber attic and wrought-iron decorations.
Among the villas situated in the eastern part of the town, worthy of special reference, along Corso Felice Cavallotti, are Villa Zirio, Villa Nobel and Villa Ormond.
Villa Nobel, in Moorish style, was inhabited from 1890 until 1896 by the Swedish scientist who, just prior to his death, devised here the institution of the famous prize. The villa is now a center of causes of important prestige and houses a permanent museum of Nobel relics and a gallery of Italian Nobel Prize winners.
Its park is rich with precious century-old plants. Nearby is the park of the nearby Villa Ormond (nowadays it is interrupted by the modern road), which formerly linked the villa on the hill directly with the sea. In the park there are fountains, jets, exotic and Mediterranean plants and a Japanese garden in miniature, in homage to Atami, the town of the Rising Sun, sistered with Sanremo.
The most luxuriant and curious garden of all Sanremo is, the Marsaglia Park, once the property of a famous Sanremo upper middle class family. Inside, amid brooks, ponds and waterfalls, opens a cave, the Franco Alfano Auditorium, a backdrop of rare splendor for the town's summer shows. In all, it the botanical species recorded in the various Sanremo gardens amount, approximately, to two thousand.
The most characteristic plant, however, is still the palm, which Czarina Maria Alexandrovna donated in great number to the city to embellish the esplanade which later took her name. Backdrop to the sea-walk is a vision of the sea and beaches of fine sand which is uncommonly beautiful.
Many sports are at home at Sanremo; in fact international events are not lacking, commencing with the Milan - Sanremo cycling race. Those, instead, who prefer to practice sport, have but to choose and sport facilities are not lacking. Tennis enthusiasts have numerous courts at their disposal; those who like riding have available a well-equipped riding ground with an adjacent riding school; seagoing tourists have two marinas at their disposal, Porto Vecchio and Portosole. The latter with as many as 890 mooring berths represents the feather in Sanremo's hat as far as pleasure boating. The Ulivi Golf Course, opened in 1931, with its eighteen holes playable throughout the entire year, is easy for beginner players and offers a competition course for the most established players.
Coldirodi, a picturesque town which closely follows the ridge of the hill; Bussana, the town destroyed by an earthquake and rebuilt a stone's throw from the sea; Verezzo, a locality consisting of a number of small groups of buildings scattered throughout the greenery; Poggio, with its promontory of the same name and the sanctuary dedicated to the Madonna della Guardia terraced above the sea; lastly San Romolo, the "little Switzerland", which lies in another world consisting of meadows, woods, peacefulness: these are the five outlying divisions of the Sanremo municipality which, together with the main locality, contribute to complete that mosaic of colors and sensations characterizing the entire district. Legend has it that San Romolo, with its houses and villas immersed in the greenery, was the home of the hermit saint from which, in the Middle Ages, Sanremo took its name. His dwelling was the "bauma", a cave, wherein the saint retired to meditate and pray, converted today into a country chapel. From San Romolo, passing along the panoramic bends of a winding road one reaches Monte Bignone (1,299 mt.). At the top, the remains of an ancient Pre-Roman castle dating back to the fifth century B.C. and a breathtaking view over the sea and mountains, usually so far away, here so near. Bussana Vecchia is a unique instance: this ghost-village, destroyed by the 1887 earthquake, was repopulated during the sixties by a flourishing colony of artists. Today its numerous workshops belonging to artisans, artists and sculptors contrast with the outlines of still-gutted dwellings and buildings. The new Bussana, with its great sanctuary, is instead a deck overlooking the sea.
Reachable by motorway or by rail, Arma di Taggia (Taggia is the chief town) is situated just six kilometres from Sanremo and is linked to that town by an efficient trolley bus service. Today it is an esteemed seaside tourist resort; in the not so distant past it was a simple fishing village.
In virtue of its spacious sandy shore and thanks to its sunny promenade, Arma was discovered as a tourist resort in the last forty years, experiencing a building boom of unforeseen proportions. Arma has more residents than Taggia and a first-rate tourist infrastructure with hotels, holiday-flats, well-equipped bathing establishments, numerous and modern public places, sport and leisure-time facilities.
At the mouth of the mountain stream Argentina is a port complete with a marina for pleasure craft. The local economy does not survive exclusively by tourism: olive-growing, introduced into the area around the VII-VIII century by the Benedictine monks, boasts a centuries-old tradition. Famous throughout the world is the Taggia variety of olives which, together with the Muscatel wine, is known and highly valued abroad.
In this district, as in every other part of the Riviera dei Fiori, flower growing has been dominant for over a century. Among the flower varieties, the scented roses, the multi-colored carnations, the long stemmed gladioli, the shy violets and the hardy chrysanthemums, all flowers accompanied in decoration by asparagus sprengeri and piumosus by eucaiyptus stuartiana and by greviilea.
Riva Ligure and Santo Stefano al Mare are seaside places of ancient charm which remain unchanged in the essential aspect of fishing villages. Santo Stefano preserves a fortalice erected in the XVI century to protect the territory from barbarian raids. The parish church, instead, was rebuilt during the eighteenth century and keeps intact the original arches of the naves and the stone columns of the original structure. Santo Stefano al Mare is a precise point of reference for here in fact is to be found the most modern pleasure-craft harbour in Liguria, the Porto degli Aregai.
Just beyond Santo Stefano towards Sanremo, is Riva Ligure besieged by modern buildings and by greenhouses for flower-growing. Riva preserves still the ancient church of San Maurizio known today as the Buon Consiglio Sanctuary: this is a building of Romanesque traits, characterized however by the original form of its arches.
Close to the harbour rises a look-out tower built during the second half of the XVI century . The rural hillside towns (all situated in panoramic positions, originally feuded and later merged under the domination of the Republic of Genoa) of Castellaro, Pompeiana and Terzorio give the territory the appearance of an active ecological workshop.
Here alongside the olive-groves are cultivated daisies, roses, carnations and lavender against a background of clear fragrant skies. Beyond Castellaro is the sanctuary dedicated to the Madonna di Lampedusa which jealously keeps the sail (a painting portraying the Madonna) of the boat built by a certain Andrea Anfosso, once a prisoner of the Turks, who escape from the Island of Lampedusa.
"Published by and reprinted with the kind permission of In Italy Online."
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