Altitude: 45 m a.s.l.
Area: 11 sq km
Distance from Imperia: 37 km
Inhabitants: in 1881: 3015 - in 2017: 10454
Patron Saint Day: May 14th - Sant'Ampelio
Information: Municipality phone 0184 2721
"City of palms" par excellence, Bordighera was founded in 1470 by thirty families from Borghetto San Nicolò; but its most ancient history is linked to the monk-blacksmith Sant'Ampelio, who at the beginning of the fifth century moved here from Lower Egypt, going to live in a cave on the seashore where today stands the chapel dedicated to him.
The district of Bordighera belonged to the jurisdiction of the Counts of Ventimiglia, until in the seventeenth century it was merged into the "Magnificent community of the Eight Places" under Genoese protection.
The city has developed vigorously over the last one hundred years in the wake of the tourist success that saw among its guests also the Royal Savoys and does not preserve significant traces of its past.
Visit of the town
Your excursion starts from the detour that, branching off at the traffic light on Via Aurelia in Bordighera, takes you in a few kilometers to Borghetto San Nicolò.
After parking the car, go down to the widening below the road and reach the Annunziata Baroque oratory, continue beyond the churchyard up to the intersection from which you’ll go right under the vault with an aedicule. Going past several archaic stone houses, take the brick-paved street on the left; at the widening there is a terracotta lion's head affixed on the left wall.
Passing under the vault on the left, venture among decaying houses up to the next vault, the original gateway to the village, which preserves at the sides the holes for the closures and in the attic the stone shelves that supported the machicolations; on the right is a window-slit, on the left a vertical slit and at the top a quadrangular one.
From there return to the road that you can cross to reach the overlying San Nicolò church; on the façade is a stone plaque commemorating that exactly on that parvis, on September 2, 1470, the heads of the families of Borghetto and of those of the neighboring towns gathered to decide on the establishment of the Bordighera community.
Back to the car and continuing on the Provincial Road you’ll reach Sasso, a handful of houses clinging to the hill.
Park in the open space in front of the churchyard of the church of Santi Pietro e Paolo: the building on the left, decorated with two marble lion heads of 1735, is the residence of the Rossi family who gave prestige to the town by churning out writers, deputies and generals, as the plaque on the facade informs you.
Next to it is the "garden of Irene Brin", a writer who has now passed away, with the three bronze statues that reminisce of the sacrifice of three partisans from Sasso.
Climb on the opposite side along the brick ramp on the right of the churchyard, passing on the left the circular tower with small quadrangular slits that defended the nearby gate whose iron hinges remain fixed in the wall.
After passing under the vault with seats on the sides you’ll arrive to the small square from which you can go down to the right; taking the left on Via Filzi, top left at the top of the staircase you can see the plaque that reminds that Pietro Taggiasco was born there, "learned man" who died in Rome in 1871 among the general grief of "all the intelligences" of that time.
Continuing to head down, come out into the square, on which stands on the right the circular tower resting on the rock below and on the house towards the street with loopholes.
Back to the car, continue driving up among olive trees and flower farms until you arrive to Seborga, heralded by repeated references to its "Principality".
Seborga, formerly "Sepulchri burgum" (hence the name) of the Counts of Ventimiglia, was ceded by them to the monks of Lerins in 959.
The history of the "Principality" is linked to the great bluff of the abbot of Lerins, who around the year 1000 began to call himself "Prince" and promoted his village to Principality, which to tell the truth dragged on for centuries in general indifference.
In the second half of the seventeenth century, Seborga had just twenty families, all of which, except for two, were described as "poor and miserable"; nevertheless the enterprising monks even put up a mint, and the self-declared Principality began to coin its own currency; and even this initiative would not bother anyone if it hadn’t been that, exactly since the friars of Seborga began to mint coins, false gold coins started to circulate more and more often in neighboring France, so well counterfeit to make everyone think of real coinage professionals.
Rightly or wrongly, King Louis XIV argued with the Seborga mint, and had it closed in 1686.
Once the abundance was over, the monks left and in 1729 they sold their "Principality" to the Savoys,who were always ready to buy at any price every piece of land that could bring them closer to the sea.
After parking the car in the widening, enter the village through Via Miranda and, once you have crossed the nice little square, pass the butcher shop which still uses the well-restored window-door of an ancient shop and take the right on Via Verdi, pass under the vault and go down left along Vicolo Stretto, arriving into the cute little square, which is the churchyard of the Baroque church of San Martino decorated on the façade with frescoes of 1928.
There also rises, surrounded by the well-reconstructed loggia, the residential palace of the "prince", with a stucco from 1896 that reproduces his coat of arms.
The church was the chapel of the Benedictines and was completely rebuilt in the seventeenth century, a period of which two wooden statues are preserved inside: to the right that of the saint and behind the high altar the one, of Spanish origin, of the Virgin with Child.
Leaving the church, go down to the right and, after arriving to the open space where the Town Hall is located, go up the ramp in front of it with semi-circular steps at the base: passing under the vault you’ll find the real most humble and genuine Seborga, that is hidden in its darkest alleys, with its old stones that still do not know the shame of the concrete of modern restorations.
After the vault take the left and return to the already walked street till you reach the car; on the mountain side of the clearing from which you will be descending down stands the oratory of San Bernardo, originally of the thirteenth century but entirely rebuilt in Baroque style, with the bell hanging on the left side without even a belltower.