sanremo: the tangible heritage
Casinò Sanremo is a majestic and elegant building notable for its Liberty Deco style, to be found at 18 Corso Inglesi, Sanremo. It is right in the heart of the town, connected to Piazza Colombo via the pedestrian street Via Matteotti, an ideal street for shopping, culture and entertainment. It's a very famous building, because there are only 4 casinos in all Italy. The other lie in Venice, Saint Vincent and Campione d'Italia, near Switzerland. It was built in liberty style by the french Eugène Ferret and designed by another famous architect Garnier (Operà de Paris). The city wanted to build it at the beginning of 1900 like the casinos of the French Riviera. The casino is a huge building, an important cultural centre of the city that brings together a theatre, a restaurant called Biribissi, a roof garden, many slot machines and also a beatiful balcony with a great view. The thatre used to plan a lot of shows every week during the winter, but now only 4 shows per year. A lot of people from Milan came here to see our shows. Today every Tuesday there is a different writer who presents his own book. The casino contains also some artworks: a staircase in wrought iron in liberty style, a statue of a women that lies on a rock on the seaside (this is called "Chica Chica") and she is proud of being first at the swimming race with her friends. Long ago the citizens of Sanremo couldn't go in the Casino to play their money, but only foreign people. The salary of the workers of the Casino was and is still today very high. The man who give the carts to the players (croupier) have his pockets closed to not steal money. There are also contemporary events.
Set on tropical grounds overlooking the sea, this grand hotel dating from 1872 is a 7-minute walk from the Casino’ of Sanremo and the Russian Cathedral and 1 km from both the Ariston Theatre. The Royal Hotel is one of the most beautiful hotels in Sanremo, offering an amazing view from the top of the balconies. Since you know about the Festival of Sanremo, where do you think singers and other stars come to get some rest? Of course right here, where important people in history have been too! Such as Gustavo V of Svevia, Umberto of Savoia etc. In addition the Royal Hotel, always renewed, historical and sophisticated, offers to guests of today a high class building, elegant and efficient, while maintaining the atmosphere of the Riviera of the last century. Elegant and stylish, it includes decorated rooms with Wi-Fi, satellite TV and minibars. It offers suites and living rooms as well. The buffet and the parking are complimentary. Amenities include two restaurants and a piano bar. In conclusion there’s an outdoor pool with a poolside bar, a gym, a spa and a tennis court.
Now we are in Piazza Bresca (Bresca Square). It is the maritime core of Sanremo. The harbour is nearby; there are some fisheries and many traditional restaurants. Here in the square there is a little church, called "Chiesa della Marina" (Marina Curch); long ago it was a tavern. The nice square is decorated with orange trees and palms. It has an important monument: a fountain of 1800. The square was called"Piazza dei Missionari" once, because there were a church and a convent of alittle community of missionaries. Later it was dedicated to the Bresca's family, when Benedetto Bresca got the privilege to give the palms to the Vatican for the famous celebration that precedes Easter. Captain Bresca was in Rome, in Piazza San Pietro (1586), when the big obelisk was raised. The architect Domenico Fontana ordered the silence for the procedure. The punishment wuold have been the death. The ropes were too hot and they could have broken, so Bresca cried "Aiga ae corde", that means "water to the ropes". They listened to him and the obelisk didn't fall on the ground. The pope didn't punish the captain of Sanremo and Bresca got the privilege to equip the Vatican of palms. This commemorative plaque remembers that Giuseppe Garibaldi comforted people about the destiny of the Italy from this house (22 September 1848).
It was the Russian community that paid the Italian architect Pietro Agosti to build the Russian Church. The church is in Byzantine style with a rectangular plan. It has a huge aisle for the prayers, the apse has a semicircle form and there is an iconostasis in the middle. The inside part, that includes few paintings and holy objects, is less beautiful than the front of the church. It concerns 4 arcs lateral and 5 domes and the main one, which is in the middle, is 50 meters high. The domes are gold, shiny, colourful and at the top you can see Russian crosses with 3 arms. A few years ago the main cross had fallen in the surrounding garden and so it lied in this place, but now it has been replaced. Outside the church, in the garden, there are two busts (sculptures), that represent King Vittorio Emanuele III and his wife Elena from Montenegro. A curiosity is that the king was really short and in order to have tall children, he married a tall woman, she was Elena in fact. The government had to reduce the standard height of soldiers so he could be able to lead the national army. Outdoor the church there is a crypt too. There were Elena’s parents and sister tombs in it, but a few years ago with the Montenegrian independence the nation wanted the bodies of their kings back. If you want to visit the church, you have to pay one euro.
The fortress of Santa Tecla, here in Sanremo, is an important construction near the seaside, Porto Vecchio. The real name of this building is Fortezza San Giorgio, but it is known as Santa Tecla, because it was built over the remains of this Saint. This massive building has a particular story, it was created in the 1756 by the Republic of Genoa in order to get the rebels of Sanremo frightened. The citizens rose up to protest, because they would like to join to the Sardinian Reign. This building was also useful to defence the city. To built it, a lot of money were spent and the houses that lay in these area were destroyed. Two years needed to finish it. Inside there are 3 floors: on the ground floor were a chapel, the captain’s roof, a warehouse and a cistern. Upstairs the roofs of the soldiers and the armoury. Then at the top other roofs. In the 1796 Santa Tecla was under control by Napoleon. The citizen were glad that they were finally free by the power of Genoa. Then Santa Tecla was controlled by Sardinia as barracks. At the end it has been being a jail for a lot of years and a military base during the second World War. But now the city has restored it and transformed it into a museum and inside it holds conferences and events.
bordighera
It was built by the sculptor Italo Griselli. This statue was erected in honor of the Queen Margherita of Savoy, the first queen of Italy and an important figure in the italian institutional scene until her death in Bordighera. We want to remember the queen, who loved those places because of their nature and serenity. The queen loved the pearls, she had a lot of long pearl necklaces so she is represented with them. She was sculpted sitting because she had short legs. The statue was placed in the middle of a lush garden, and it still stands out with the white of this marble on the green of the plants.
Today Via Romana is an elegant driveway shaded by a row of plane trees and bordered by pretty villas and beautiful hotels. It follows the route of the ancient Via Julia Augusta, opened by the romans in 13 B.C to connect Liguria with Gaul. Until the mid nineteenth century it was a simple flowered mule track. To the arrangement of the road contributed the architect Charles Garnier as an urban planning consultant to the Municipality