The town of Monet's palms
Near the French border, on a promontory facing the sea, Bordighera is one of the most elegant towns on the Riviera di Ponente, famous for its palm trees, which grow everywhere in its gardens and along its streets, thanks to an exceptionally mild climate. According to tradition, in 1586, during the raising of the obelisk in St Peter's Square in Rome, a sailor from Bordighera, Captain Bresca, saved the operation by shouting to wet the ropes, which were about to break; as a reward, the Pope granted his family the privilege of supplying the palm fronds for Palm Sunday celebrations in the Vatican, a tradition that the town still continues.
In the second half of the nineteenth century, Bordighera became a favourite winter resort of the English, who formed a large colony, building villas, gardens, churches, a library and tennis clubs; among them was the naturalist Clarence Bicknell, who founded the Museo Bicknell, with his collections of botany and the casts of the prehistoric rock engravings of Monte Bego. In 1884 the painter Claude Monet stayed in Bordighera for about three months, enchanted by the light and the vegetation, and painted dozens of canvases of its palms, olive groves, gardens and views of the old town, now in museums all over the world. The old town, on the hill, is a small walled village with gates and lanes, while the Lungomare Argentina, a promenade of about two kilometres along the sea, is one of the most beautiful of the Riviera. The Giardino Esotico Pallanca displays thousands of cacti and succulents.
Tip: follow the "Monet trail", with panels showing his paintings at the points where he painted them; walk the Lungomare Argentina at sunset.
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