Sanremo showed traces of human activity since ancient times, however it is from the Roman era that the city began to develop as a significant settlement. It is said that in Roman times the city take her name from the name of Villa Matutia as it developed around the luxurious villa of Caio Matutio, Another interpretation refers to the Roman divinity Mater Matuta, goddess of Dawn, then changed into Matutia and then Villa Matutiæ. However in the Middle Ages the name of the city changed to Sanremo. The city, in the last 2 centuries, has had an increasingly growing vocation towards tourism. There were many illustrious personalities who settled in the municipality: the Tsarina Maria Aleksandrovna (who first chose Sanremo to “winter”, opening the way to the elite tourism of the Russian nobility), the Empress Elisabeth of Bavaria (Sissi, Empress of Austria )and British authorities.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the most qualified entertainment facilities for the demanding époque elite began to emerge: the Casino, the golf course, the Sanremo-Monte Bignone cable car, the longest in the world at the time, the racecourse and the stadium
With the establishment, in modern times, of the Sanremo Festival, it acquired even more a role in the collective imagination of a town frequented by famous people, and as such it saw tourism increase significantly.
Traditionally, there are three different ways of indicating the habitants of the city: the “Sanremaschi” are those who for generations have been born and lived in Sanremo; the “Sanremesi”, those who reside or were born in the city but have foreign origins (“furesti”, in the local dialect); finally the “Matuziani”, used more rarely, a term that originates from the ancient Roman site of Villa Matutia, which gathers the inhabitants of the city of flowers as a whole.
The city offers several examples of heterogeneous architecture, ranging from the Baroque to the Liberty style, from the Romanesque to the Neoclassical. An example is the Co-Cathedral of San Siro located in the historic part of Sanremo, nearby there is La Pigna: the old medieval village created to shelter from the attacks of the Saracens, from where you can admire wonderful views of the City of Flowers.
An example of Liberty style is the Sanremo Casino where you can relax by playing at the tables of the famous gambling house, the first to be created in Italy in 1905. From this structure begins the Sanremo shopping street, Via Matteotti, with many boutiques and trendy bars; On this renowned pedestrian street, you can also admire Palazzo Borea d’Olmo where the city museum of the same name is located on the second floor. A little further on is the Ariston Theater, the famous Festival theater, and to follow one of the central squares: Piazza Colombo.
Still remaining in the city center, other places to visit are: the beautiful Russian Church (San Basilio), right next to the Casino, or the Fort of Santa Tecla which in the course of its history was used as a prison until 1997; then after the restoration it was used for conferences and exhibitions.
Another place to visit for those who come to the City of Flowers is Bussana Vecchia, the so-called “City of Artists, a fraction of the municipality of Sanremo which in February 1887 was destroyed by a violent earthquake and in the 1950s, after decades of neglect, was rediscovered. (and partially restored) by a group of international artists.
