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?

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.

It was the climate, unusually mild, which attracted the first V.I.P. tourists, nobility and sovreigns, from all over Europe to this locality during the past century.
A meteorological situation perpetually favourable, thanks to that considerable mountain range beyond the sea (Monte Bignone, the highest peak, almost reaches 1,300 metres) which seems created especially to protect the coastal area from the cold winds blowing from the north.
Thus it never rains at Sanremo or limitedly (750 millimetres rainfall per annum); the days are almost always sunny and the mean temperature is particularly mild and constant: 10 degrees in winter, 23 in summer with a range of just 14.4 degrees between the coldest month, January and the hottest one, August; an ideal premise for making Sanremo the capital of all-season holiday-making .
On the other hand recent statistics speak clearly: the town has more than one hundred hotels and annual visitor presences are constantly in excess of one million.
Tourist attractions are not lacking and Sanremo is open throughout the year.
Sport facilities abound and are wellequipped, especially the golf-links and the horse-riding centre.
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 the ground, a parade of typical shops and fashionable "boutiques"; on Tuesday and on Saturday morning the practically inescapable appointment is the gaily-coloured 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' (see picture) (360 thousand presences 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 lite; for sport, sailing and rowing regattas, world-level 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 rightly famous Songwriters Festival, the Tenco Award, the Sanremo Immagine 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, just because of the unparalleled climatic situation, the many species of plants and flowers from all over the world feel at home wherefore Sanremo is able to boast really beautiful parks and gardens richly endowed in vegetation remarkable and unique in its composition.

From the more directly productive viewpoint, it is the floricultural sector which benefits of this unusual situation: the category here 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 stop to look at the glass-covered hills, surrounding Sanremo, a landscape of squared and dazzling greenhouses, completed by the cylindrical tanks which collect the water used for irrigation. Tourism, flower-growing, Casino': three important items for the civic 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.