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San remo Travel guide, San remo hotels, vacation

For over a century San Remo has been bewitching tourists from all over the world being able to renovate itself without changing its own natural environment.
You can see it in its historical centre, rich in vestiges of a millennial history, in its surroundings, with the picturesque inland villages such as Dolceacqua, Pigna, Bajardo or Apricale.
It can be seen in an extraordinary number of sport-facilities, social and cultural activities, contests, international conferences, festivals and other events. And, most of all, it can be seen in the ability the hotel trade had to conform to the ever-changing requirements of the 90's and the millenium's tourism, without omitting anything of the traditional host's values.

San remo Travel guide, San-remo hotels - holidays in Italy

San remo Travel information

The Devachan castle was bought in 1890 by the English count Orazio Savile of Mexborough. The elder lord Mexborough acquired the castle to live there with his young spouse Lady Ivy, despite his age of 75 years. The count of Mexborough had become a Buddhist after having lived in India for thirty years, it was he who named the castle Devachan. Before it was called Villa Silvia Mexborough, after his first wife.

The castle has changed many owners, once owned by Roberto Cibrario a cultured and mysterious gentleman from Piemont. After several years the castle was owned by an English colonel; Spencer Stenfield was married to a beautiful Russian singer, who had been very famous in Paris, where she had found refugee after the Russian revolution of October.

She assumed the responsibility of the Russian orthodox community of Sanremo and is now buried at the cemetery of Armea close to Sanremo.

The Devachan castle was built and designed by the engineer Pietro Agosti (from Sanremo) with the help of engineer winter. The entrepreneur was Costanzio Sappia.

The architecture of the castle was in the liberty style, requested by the English count Orazio Seville of Mexborough. The castle stands majestically on the hill of Berigo towards the sundown a few minutes from the centre of Sanremo, among other very rich and beautiful villa s, between palm trees, orange trees, cactus, banana and other tropical and Mediterranean plants.

The castle with its magnificent architecture is to be reached by a road called Corso degli Inglesi (rad of the English). At the entry stands a large gate in Florentine style; which at the time had won a gold medal award in England. The door of the castle itself is of heavily and beautifully decorated bronze.

There used to be many statues and figures of the Greek mythologies and four lions, all ordered by it’s English aristocratic owner. A large porch in renaissance style, surrounded by a beautiful balustrade four columns made out of precious stone called diaspro. The main room is made all out of marble of Carrara.

All the furniture was Louis XVI French style. Other rooms were the library, the billiard -room and others meant for the guest.

One of the gates, the bronze door, with several pieces of furniture and small art objects, had been purchased at an auction by no less than Gabriele D’Annunzio. The original wall paintings (frescos) in Louis XVI style can still be seen today.

Their painters were G. Batista and Carlo and Giuseppe Bova.
The Devachan castle entered history in the 19th century when it’s new owner the commander Edoardo Meregaglia Kept the castle open to the Italian government.

An international peace conference was held.

The participants where representants of the winning countries after the first word war.

The problem to be solved was that of the “stretti” :
(Palestine, Egypt and Iran). On the 18th of April 1920 the negotiations started at the Devachan castle.

Many famous people were present; the prime Minister of Italy Francesco Saverio Nitti, accompanied by the chief of military, gen. P.Badoglio and the minister of foreign affairs Sciaboia.

The English minister Lloyd George Bonnardlaw and lord Gurzon arrived in Sanremo, with a warship, they stayed at the Hotel Royal.

The Basilica of Saint Siro was built in the beginning of the 12th century, with any probability, by the Masters of Como, on the ruins of a primitive palaeochristian church, which still exists, partly, about three meters under the floor of the today's church.

It is a perfect parallelogram, three aisles, determined by a double order of slender and proportioned columns, surmounted by ogival arches, carrying, together to the roof of the lateral aisles, the more elevated structures of the central aisle.

Originally, the church ended, at the east side, with three circular apses, now nearly completely disappeared (only some elements remain visible) and the presbyteries was situated under the cross-vault which may be admired by the visitor looking towards the ceiling standing near the balusters of the high altar.

For the lack of lateritious material the construction was made by compact limestone, for the mural and decorative parts, of a severe yellowish colour, coming from the near cave of Verezzo, worked in regular runs and in face at sight.

During the XVIIth century (at the dawning of the Baroque) to meet the necessity of the faith, the enlargement of the choir was decided, for which realization the three apses of roman style were almost completely pulled down and rebuilt, much more backward, including altars and baroque decorations inside.

A few years later (cause: the English naval bombing of 1745 which let fall down a great part of the roof and the façade of the church) the other definitive operation on the monument, which took away from the visitor’s eye, for about two centuries, a rare example of roman-gothic architecture.

Following the taste of the period, the ancient and severe stone masonry was plastered and covered by stuccoes, the ogival arches disappeared and hidden by round arches, the support truss of the roofs were covered with barre-and sail-vaults.

A lot of chalk covered, with redundant volutes, the capitals and the columns, whilst on the original façade was placed a baroque structure, with niches and statues.

During the last years of the 19th century, as well for the precariousness of the conditions in which the church was situated, as for a revival of the good tast, steps were taken in order to start the complete restoration and to bring the monument back to its primitive style.

San remo Sights, sightseeing, culture:

A history of culture, and relax, from the stiff gentlemen of Victorian England to the mysterious Russian princesses, from the Nobel-prize winner scientist to the flashing Isotta-Fraschini of the jeunesse dorée of the roaring years, from the great composer Mascagni to Eduardo De Filippo's mythical comedies. A world full of life, ideas and fancy plays an important part of the history of its town, where the sun never seems willing to set and the night never wanting to end.

Some places never lose anything of their memory. Passing time, changes of men add and never subtract, widening from time to time the charm that surrounds them. It gives them a present, rich by all the images of the past; San Remo is one of those magical places. Its beauty is born by the constant entwining of Past and Future: in a fresco made of its worldwide renowned flowers and of its perpetually mild weather, of the deep-blue sea and of many unforgettable images.

The sun is setting; the glances and the smiles of the day are turning in complicity and night seduction. A night made of elegance and emotion at the gambling tables in the historical Casino. Emperor William II, King Faruk, personalities, celebrated movie-stars and thousand and thousand of faces, famous and unknown, in the course of decades have addressed challenge to Lady Luck in the splendid halls of the Casino, because - as Gogol wrote - with the cards in hand all men are alike.

A fame that can also be won flying through the "Blu dipinto di blu" as happened to "Mister Volare" Domenico Modugno, one of the singers who best represented the long history of the Song Festival of San Remo, along with Nilla Pizzi and Claudio Villa, Bobby Solo and Adriano Celentano, up to the recent glories Eros Ramazzotti and Laura Pausini and to the many prestigious international guests: as the mythical Ray Charles, Elton John, Miriam Makeba and Peter Gabriel. San Remo is not only the town of Italian Song, with its stories, but this town has experienced the spectacular events of social customs, the fashion and trends of changing Italy.

On a bicycle all men are not the same. There have been and there are extraordinary men, such as those who for decades have been racing in the "classic race": the legendary Milan-San Remo. It gave fame to Fausto Coppi, Eddy Merckx and many champions who in the hairpin curves of Mount Turchino or in the furious final sprints on the promenade have designed their fame.