Altitude: 25 m a.s.l.
Area: 11 sq km
Distance from Imperia: 10 km
Inhabitants: in 1881: 993 - in 2017: 3062
Patron Saint Day: August 24th - San Bartolomeo
Information: Municipality phone 0183 40921
Visit of the town
The town of San Bartolomeo al Mare has developed with particular vigor in the last fifty years, occupying the entire flood plain to the west of the Steria stream.
On the open space used as a parking lot to the east of the promenade stands the lookout tower.
Your excursion starts from Via Aurelia, taking the “Salita al Santuario” that branches off to the mountain side of the center of the town, which takes you in about three hundred meters to the churchyard surrounded by centuries-old trees of the sixteenth-century Sanctuary of Madonna della Rovere.
The 1553 portal has a black stone architrave carved in a Trigram between cornucopias, surmounted gradually by a stone engraved with the "Annunciation", by the stucco of the tree to which the Sanctuary refers, and then by the niche with the statue of the Virgin; on the architrave of the right side door is carved another much simpler "Annunciation", washed away at the top.
The interior has three naves divided by octagonal pillars; in the left apse there are a wooden sculpture of the "Virgin with Child" and a Flemish canvas of the same subject; in the choir the tempera triptych of 1578 by Giulio De Rossi, and in the right apse a fifteenth-century crucifix.
Leaving the church, go along the paved road to the right at the first fork, then at the second fork turn left on Via Vione, arriving in less than a kilometer of walk through olive groves and floral nurseries to the church of Sant’ Anna in the hamlet of Poiolo, which preserves a polyptych of the Saint by Giulio De Rossi (1570/75).
Returning to the car, go back to Via Aurelia heading to the east and, upon reaching the crossroads with traffic lights, follow the signs to the motorway.
After 800 meters you’ll reach, flanked by the Baroque oratory of San Michele, seat of the confraternity of San Carlo, the parish church of San Bartolomeo erected in 1200, but entirely rebuilt in the seventeenth century and then again largely remodeled at the end of the nineteenth century.
The bell tower preserves the original splayed single-light window and the round-arched mullioned windows; inside the church there are the polyptych by Raffaele and Giulio De Rossi (1562) "San Bartolomeo e Santi" and the baptismal font of 1483.
Back to the car, take on the right the detour to Pairola, a small village that you can reach after a couple of kilometers. The church, divided inside into three naves by four stone columns, dates back to the eighteenth century with a facade rebuilt in 1926; the right side is decorated with small arches resting on the rock wall, chiselled at the base to obtain seats.
Resuming the car, continue to the left of the church and at the intersection go left heading into the Steria valley until you reach the yellow sign that welcomes you and announces Villa Faraldi.