Splendid and renowned Ligurian town, Sanremo it is largely associated with the annual edition of the Italian Song Festival which has been held in this location since the first half of the XNUMXth century. But Sanremo is a well-known holiday resort in the Liguria, in the province of Imperia, not far from its neighbor French. Let's see what to see and what to do in Sanremo.
What to see and what to do in Sanremo
1 Stroll along the avenues and the seafront
The avenues of Sanremo invite you to stroll among palm trees and well-kept gardens. The park Marseille features exotic plants and the Riviera Palace Hotel hosts thetourism Office. The seafront with its palm trees of "the city of flowers" recalls famous places of the Cote d'Azur, with its gardens and charming villas that denote a certain standard of living that is not exactly popular. If you are looking for a car park in Sanremo, you can park right on the Nazioni seafront, by the sea or in Corso Imperatrice.
2 The Sanremo casino
Sanremo is a town that hosts one of the few casinos located in Italy. The casino was opened in 1905 and then expanded during the following years. It is open every day and is located at the beginning of Corso Matteotti.
3 The Ariston Theatre
The Ariston Theater in Sanremo is (perhaps) one of the best known in Italy thanks to the annual editions (usually in February) of the Italian Song Festival known as the "Sanremo Festival". The Ariston Theater is located along Corso Matteotti and has an old-style façade (Art Decò) with its century of existence (1924). Since 1977 it has been a permanent venue for the singing festival which was previously held in the casino in certainly smaller spaces than the theatre.
4 La Pigna
Sanremo contains a delightful medieval city between some bastions. It is the "Pigna". This is a place absolutely worth seeing with the streets, squares, fountains all dating back to the medieval period and houses still inhabited. Among the most beautiful squares is "Piazza dei Dolori" but the whole area lends itself to a pleasant walk among buildings and cafes that echo times gone by.
The villas of Sanremo
5 Villa Nobel
Villa Nobel is a magnificent nineteenth-century building that stands in an eclectic style to the east of the town along Corso Cavallotti. Its history began in the late 1870s, when the pharmacist of Rivoli Pietro Vacchieri he had it built based on a design by Filippo Grossi an elegant building appreciated "for the slenderness and elegance of its forms". The general appearance of the villa, surrounded by a beautiful park of valuable plants that extended to the sea, enlivened by sheds and "French" roofs, was anything but unpleasant. They impressed Nobel who purchased it on 25 April 1891 with the availability of a large piece of land (6.099 m6), crossed by two level crossings, equipped with gas candelabra and two wells with relative pumps as well as a series of small buildings and precarious. Nobel lived there alone for 1890 years (1896-1892). The renovation works, entrusted to the architect in XNUMX Pio Soli, they did not distort the original project but involved the raising of a floor and changes to the central and turret roofs. In the attic, windows were opened alternating with frescoed metopes. Upon the death of the Swedish scientist in 1897, the villa passed to Max Adolphe Philipp, Director of the German Dynamite Society, only to be sold again. The sale dates back to 1969Autonomous Tourist and Tourism Company of Sanremo, who destined it for cultural and tourism events which was followed by the last change of ownership, in 1973, to the Province of Imperia which in the XNUMXs entrusted its permanent organization to the Nobel Foundation, under the supervision of the engineer Strandh, Director of the Technical Museum of Stockholm. From 1993 new restoration and preparation works transformed it into a museum.
6 Villa Ormond
It was 1875 when the Swiss entrepreneur Michel Louis Ormond, head of a cigar factory in Vevey, as well as a politician and lover of history and the arts, became the owner of Villa Rambaldi, in the center of a vast estate in the eastern area of Sanremo. After marrying her, in fact, a Paris in 1866 the French poet Marie Margherite Renet, the poor health conditions of his wife induced Michel Louis Ormond to look for a residence on the Riviera. When on 25 February 1887 a violent earthquake struck western Liguria, the Ormond residence suffered very serious damage, so much so that the Swiss family decided to erect a new building: after two years of work (1889) the resulting result it was the elegant one Villa Ormond, born from the project of the Swiss architect already author of Opera House Geneva and numerous villas of Swiss high society. The villa had among its illustrious guests i Princes of Prussia, Duke of Aosta andEmpress Elizabeth ofAustria. With death before Michel Louis Ormond (1901) and then of Marie Margherite (1925) the Ormond property was put up for sale and it was the Municipality of Sanremo that concluded the deal, purchasing the entire estate in 1930 for three million lire. Thanks to the mayor of the time, Pietro Agosti, the park was opened to the public and the large fountain designed by Agosti himself and the exhibition pavilion were built. Today a wing of the villa houses the International Institute of Humanitarian Law, while the villa is often used as a venue for international floral exhibitions or for tourist events.
7 Roman villa of Bussana
The remains of the Roman villa of Bussana they are located near the mouth of the Armea stream, in the Capo Marine area. In ancient times, the villa was located along the probable route of Via Julia Augusta or on a secondary road connected to it. It cannot be ruled out that the villa originally had a much larger extension than the visible one and that it included within it, in addition to the productive part, also a residential part, even if this has not been preserved. It would therefore not be a simple rustic villa but a real extra-urban residence, equipped to accommodate the owner for longer or shorter stays. Further proof of this interpretation is also the rather careful technique found in the construction of the walls, the cement work with facing in rectangular blocks of limestone and sandstone (petit appareil).
With the exception of a kiln for firing bricks and bricks and a water reservoir, it is not easy to know what the function of the preserved rooms was as for the most part there are no particular arrangements that could document the carrying out of specific activities, therefore one can think of destinations generic functions such as warehouses or granaries, or others connected to domestic activities. Outside the perimeter walls of the villa and, therefore, perhaps completely foreign to it, stands a tomb with a quadrangular shape on the outside and semicircular on the inside, in such a way as to create a large apsidal niche where the celebratory statue could be placed of the deceased or that of a deity. The construction technique of the walls is similar to that used for the villa, but the stone blocks are alternated with rows of bricks. The ceramic materials coming from the excavation of the kiln, the discoveries of coins and epigraphs allow us to date the construction of the villa and the tomb between the XNUMXst and XNUMXnd centuries AD.
8 Roman Villa della Foce
The remains of the Roman villa of Foce they are located near the monumental cemetery of Sanremo, near the sea outlet of Rio Foce. The site has been known since the seventeenth century, as reported by local scholars. According to unfounded hypotheses, which however were given credence until the beginning of the XNUMXth century, the villa was identified as Villa Matuciana, a name deriving from a toponym that recalls the main center of this area in Roman times, probably to be identified with the urban area of Sanremo. Following the report of the Honorary Inspector Eng. P. Agosti in 1925 the first archaeological investigations began by the archaeologist P. Barocelli, who highlighted some rooms, correctly recognized as part of a spa system belonging to a villa. Other remains, perhaps still belonging to this same building, were identified further west, near the Rio San Bernardo, while the existence of submerged remains of the villa was only hypothesized.
Three rooms, those which today retain the highest walls, had perhaps been reused as early as the XNUMXth century for the construction of a rural house. The excavations and research on the villa were resumed by N. Lamboglia in 1937 and continued in 1962-63 again by Lamboglia after the area of the villa had been acquired by the Ministry and the Municipality of San Remo. The rural house was thus demolished and a series of other rooms were brought to light. More recently, underwater investigations conducted by the Superintendence have made it possible to ascertain that the presumed submerged ruins in the stretch of sea in front of the villa are in reality natural rock outcrops.
The Foce villa most likely belongs to the type of maritime villas, large extra-urban residences located near the sea. At the moment, 12 rooms are visible: the entire bathroom (balneum) of the villa, intended for the exclusive use of the owner; the rest areas, overlooking the open space in front, perhaps treated as a garden; a service compartment connected to the operation of the spa; the open courtyard; the latrine. In some areas of the bathroom various elements of the heating system are preserved. At the current state of research, it is possible to propose an initial dating for the villa to the XNUMXst century AD. C. on the basis of the typology of the heating systems and for the ceramic finds found, data in accordance with the cement work technique with facing in rectangular blocks of sandstone and limestone (petit appareil), used for the construction. Furthermore, the ceramic finds testify to the continuity of use of this building until the XNUMXth – XNUMXth century AD. C.
Places of culture in Sanremo
9 Palazzo Borea D'Olmo
Palazzo Borea d'Olmo is one of the most important Baroque buildings in western Liguria. It was built on several occasions starting from a late medieval nucleus and took on its current appearance in the midst of the Baroque era, between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries. The building was continuously inhabited by family members Elm Borea, of Venetian origins, and of ancient lineage, who chose it as their private home and from which it took its name. After the gradual alienation of the surrounding garden areas, it currently faces directly south onto Via Matteotti, the main street of the city.
The façades are characterized by a large Renaissance-style cornice, which harmonises with the Baroque-Manneristic decoration. On the south and west facades you can see two beautiful marble portals (with the original wooden doors, lined with studded iron sheets) surmounted by the marble statues of the "Virgin and Child” (prospectus) and the “St. John the Baptist” (Via Cavour side), work by the Florentine artist Fra Giovanni da Montorsoli (1507-1563), in his youth a favorite pupil and assistant of Michelangelo and one of the sculptors of the `Doria stable?, operating in the Palazzo del Principe in Genoa. The monumental atrium, in pure Genoese style, features marble columns and balustrades, a short staircase and a harmonious play of vaults.
Inside, the rooms that house the Museum on the second floor are enriched with frescoes and decorative additions attributable to the painter Maurizio Carrega (1737 – 1818). The vaults of the halls bear late seventeenth-century frescoes by Giovanni Battista Merano. Of note inside is a tiny chapel with a marble altar, with a statue of the Immaculate Virgin accessible to the sculptor Giacomo Antonio Ponsonelli. The Palace has shared the vicissitudes of local history for several centuries. It has hosted a long series of princes, sovereigns and illustrious men: from Queen Elizabeth of Spain, King Charles Emmanuel III, to the painter Jean-Honore Fragonard, Pope Pius VII, Prince Philip of Edinburgh.
10 Civic Museum of Sanremo
The Civic Museum, initially born as an Archaeological Museum, is located on the second floor of Palazzo Borea d'Olmo, in the splendid rooms of the prestigious residence, enriched by works of Bernardo Strozzi, Giovanni Battista Merano, Maurizio Carrega. Since 1988 it has been divided into three distinct sections: archeological, Art (art gallery) e historical (collection of Garibaldi memorabilia).
La Archaeological section, the most consolidated, established in 1972 and supported by the permanent educational exhibition "Man and the origins of civilization in Liguria", collects the oldest evidence found in the Sanremo area and its district, from the Paleolithic and the Bronze Age until the Roman period. There picture gallery it houses a valuable collection of paintings and sculptures from bequests and acquisitions. The most representative is the collection of paintings and prints donated by the poet Renzo Laurano, pseudonym of Luigi Asquasciati (1909-1986), a choice of landscapes, portraits and religious subjects from the seventeenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century, D. Fiasella, C. Giuseppe Ratti, G Grosso. Recently formed is the room dedicated to artists who worked between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, from Edward Lear ad Antonio Discovolo e Anthony Rubino. The exhibition is completed by a series of sculptures by authors from the early 900s (Vincenzo and Nello Pasquali, Franco Bargiggia) and a room dedicated to contemporary art (paintings by Cesi Amoretti, Giannetto Fieschi, etc.). In the Stucco Room the historical section exhibits offers evidence of the city's history and an important collection of Garibaldi memorabilia that belonged to the English noblewoman Caroline Phillipson.
11 Scientific collection
La scientific collection of ancient instruments of physics and geodesy was studied, cataloged on computer support and recovered with the help of the DIFI Physics Museum - University of Genoa (in the period 2006-2007), as part of the project to safeguard and enhance the historical-scientific instrumentation existing in schools and other cultural institutions of Liguria, supported and financed by the Liguria region (Department of Culture). There are 94 instruments catalogued. Most of the instruments date back to a period ranging from the second half to the end of the XNUMXth century. With the valorisation of this heritage, the IIS "Colombo" of Sanremo aims to organize initiatives to disseminate scientific culture aimed above all at young people and secondary school students in Western Liguria. The collection also includes mineralogical and natural science collections and some anatomical models.
12 Rambaldi Art Gallery, Villa Luca
Established in 1866, the Rambaldi collection, including the picture gallery and the library, finds its origins in the bequest of the library and the collection of prints that the priest Paolo Stefano Rambaldi (1803-1865) destined upon his death to his native municipality of Colla, today Coldirodes, a hamlet of the Municipality of Sanremo. Currently the art gallery is made up of around a hundred pictorial works, from the XNUMXth to the XNUMXth century.
Among them the Madonna with child attributed to Lorenzo di Credi (Verrocchio's workshop), the Holy Family by Fra Bartolomeo della Porta, as well as valuable paintings by di Aurelio Lomi, Salvator Rosa, Michele Rocca, Jacopo Ligozzi and numerous other examples from the major Italian painting schools. The collection is closely connected to the social and cultural context of nineteenth-century Florence, where Rambaldi was rector of the Major Archiepiscopal seminary for almost ten years, until 1849. The priest's taste was not entirely alien to the interest in more recent authors, still linked to classical canons such as Anton Raphael Mengs e Antonio Morghen, and authors of classical taste such as the Hungarian Karoly Marko the Elder.
Attached to the picture gallery, the Library preserves more than five thousand volumes, including precious incunabula, sixteenth-century manuscripts and rare manuscripts collected by the priest. The transfer of the collection in 2006 from the modest premises of the former municipal headquarters of Coldirodi to the large restored spaces of Villa Luca, also in Coldirodi, maintained the link between the library and the picture gallery and preserved the specific character of the collection.
13 Cassini Classical High School Physics Cabinet Museum
The oldest Institute of Higher Studies in the province and one of the few centenary high schools in Italy: founded in Nice in 1860, when the Kingdom of Sardinia extended up to the Var, in that same year it was transferred to Sanremo, so that it would be Italian after the transfer to the France of this city. It is the only high school which, within the province of Imperia, offers access to a wide range of courses, also enriched by various ongoing experiments.
The scientific imprint of the high school is attested by the Physics Department where precious, finely crafted instruments for carrying out experiments are collected over time; as proof of this, the news reports that the laboratory was also used by Alfred Nobel during his stay in Sanremo. Currently, with the fruitful collaboration of the Department of Physics of the University of Genoa and with the support of the Liguria Region, the original collection has become a museum open to the public, as well as an opportunity for in-depth study for students and those who are passionate about science .
14 Where to sleep in Sanremo
Sanremo offers a good one hotel and extra-hotel hospitality. Being a holiday resort for years it has been accustomed to the "cult of the guest". In Sanremo it is possible to find hundreds and hundreds of hospitality offers.
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