San remo Travel guide

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.