Altitude: 5 m a.s.l.

Area: 5.4 sq km

Distance from Imperia: km 29

Inhabitants:

- in 1881: 2268

- in 2017: 3276

Patron Saint Day: June 24th - San Giovanni Battista

Information: Municipality tel. 0184 68221

The first news regarding Ospedaletti refers to the Knights of Malta who erected there, near a source of sulphurous waters, the original hospital from which the village took its name.

After being a modest agricultural and maritime center for centuries, Ospedaletti had an extraordinary development linked to tourism in the nineteenth century: among other things it was chosen as a climatic residence by the Empress of Russia Maria Alessandrovna, the tenor Francesco Tamagno and many other celebrities of the Belle Epoque, of which it became the most popular tourist and seaside resort.

Visit of the town

Ospedaletti preserves very few traces of its past: in the center of the village, on Via Roma 29, stands a sixteenth-century anti-Saracen quadrangular tower, and a little further on there is the thirteenth-century church erected by the crusaders and dedicated to Sant'Erasmo, protector of sailors, which preserves a rich collection of seafaring ex votos with scale models of sailing ships, even of considerable size.

In the immediate hinterland stands the church of the Porrine of late sixteenth century origin but later rebuilt in the eighteenth century; the facade is flanked by two bell towers, and the interior preserves frescoes by Carrega.

Immediately to the east of Ospedaletti is Bordighera.