The carnation, a deep crimson, with a scent that hits you four feet before the stall, costs 50 cents. The woman selling them has been growing carnations in the hills above San Remo for forty-two years, and when you ask what makes this particular flower so vivid, she gestures vaguely at the sky, the sea, and the soil as if the answer is so obvious that the question itself is a little ridiculous. And standing there, with the Ligurian sun on your shoulders and the Mediterranean glittering behind the flower market, you realise she is right.

San Remo: The Italian Riviera Without the Instagram Circus

San Remo sits on the Riviera dei Fiori (the Coast of Flowers), about 25 km east of the French border and a world away from the Cinque Terre crowds that are currently queuing for focaccia an hour south. The town is famous for three things: flowers (it supplies a significant percentage of Europe’s cut flowers, shipped daily from the wholesale market), the Sanremo Music Festival (Italy’s Eurovision, held annually at the Teatro Ariston since 1951), and a particular brand of Belle Époque elegance that has aged, unlike some Riviera resorts, into something genuine rather than faded.

The Old Town (La Pigna)

La Pigna, “the pine cone”, is the medieval core, a concentric spiral of narrow alleys and stepped lanes that climb the hill behind the modern town. The streets are so steep and so tightly wound that cars cannot enter; the only traffic is cats, laundry flapping from upper windows, and the occasional elderly resident carrying groceries with the casual fitness of someone who has been climbing these steps every day since 1953. The climb to the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Costa (the church at the summit, built 1658, baroque interior with a wooden Madonna statue from the 14th century) takes about 25 minutes from the bottom of La Pigna. The view from the terrace, the harbour, the sea, the coastline curling away toward France, is worth the ascent in any weather, but especially at sunset when the light turns the whitewashed walls of the old town to gold.

The Flower Market (Mercato dei Fiori)

The wholesale flower market on Via Quinto Mansuino is not a tourist attraction, it is a working commercial hub where florists from across Europe arrive at 5am to bid on roses, carnations, mimosa, and the San Remo ranunculus that are prized for their unusually dense petals. The market floor is a football-field-sized riot of colour and scent; the trading is done by 8am, and visitors are tolerated rather than encouraged. The retail flower market in the town centre (Mercato Annonario, mornings only) is the accessible version, smaller, friendlier, and happy to sell you a bunch of ranunculus for €3 that would cost €15 in London.

The Russian Church (Chiesa Russa Ortodossa)

San Remo was a favoured winter resort of the Russian aristocracy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Tsarina Maria Alexandrovna (wife of Alexander II) spent winters here, and the Russian community built an Orthodox church in 1913 that looks, with its onion domes and blue-and-gold iconostasis, like it was airlifted in from St Petersburg. The church is still active; services are held on Sundays, and visitors are welcome outside of service times. The icons inside, dark, solemn, glittering with gold leaf, are a jarring and beautiful contrast to the citrus trees and palm-lined promenade outside. Empress Maria Alexandrovna is buried here, in a marble sarcophagus in the crypt.

The Casino and the Promenade

The San Remo Casino (built 1905, Art Nouveau, the first casino in Italy) is an architectural statement in cream and terracotta that dominates the seafront. It is still operational, black tie in the main gaming rooms after 8pm, but the more accessible pleasure is the promenade that stretches either side of it. The Passeggiata Imperatrice (Empress’s Promenade), named for Maria Alexandrovna, is lined with palm trees and ornamental flower beds that change with the seasons, tulips in spring, geraniums in summer, chrysanthemums in autumn. The walk from the Casino to the old port (Porto Vecchio, a small fishing harbour where the boats bob gently and the seafood restaurants post their daily catch on chalkboards) takes 25 minutes and captures the essence of San Remo: elegant but not pretentious, beautiful but not performative, Italian but with a distinctly French lightness blowing in from across the border.

Day Trips and Practical Notes

San Remo is 25 minutes from the French border (Ventimiglia, the first town in France, is an easy day trip), 35 minutes from the medieval hilltop village of Dolceacqua (where Claude Monet painted the bridge in 1884), and an hour from Nice airport. The train station connects to Genoa (2 hours east) and Nice (1 hour west). The town is compact and walkable; a car is unnecessary unless you plan to explore the hill villages inland. The Sanremo Music Festival in February transforms the town, hotels book out months ahead, and the energy is electric, but the crowds are substantial. For a quieter visit, come in April-May or September-October, when the weather is warm, the flowers are in full bloom, and the sea is still swimmable.