Sanremo e la Riviera dei Fiori

Colourland
Sharp clear colours, 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 centre, Sanremo, floreal kaleidoscope, fashionable and attractive township, with its gardens blossoming with every colour and species, even the most exotic, which feels at ease here just like any tourist on holiday.

Then the embrace of a hilly amphitheatre in blossom, colours 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, eached fortresses, medieval gate ways, remarkable churches: Taggia, a jewel-case of art; Ceriana, in the Val Armea, with its ancient houses imbing 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 a.s.l., it is possible to go skiing in winter; Monesi, a winter holiday week 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?

Sanremo
There is no position 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 centre of a vast inlet delimited to the east by Capo Verde and to the west by Capo Nero.
The ancient heart of Sanremo, the La Pigna neighbourhood, which dates back more or less to the year one thousand and has remained practically intact with its enchanting web of steep winding alleys, clings to the hill, 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 discernible still 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.

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