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HINTERLAND |
  
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| The hinterland along the southern slopes of the Maritime Alps is worth more than one visit. In the Nervia Valley there are many little towns, each with their own history and artistic memories. Isolabona jealously preserves the old songs of the valleys. In the neat little town and the restored Castello della Lucertola, Apricale offers captivating artistic events. Pigna, not to be confused with the district of the same name in Sanremo, is a tourist resort known for its spa waters, with interesting works of art to be seen. Seborga, the old Principality, produces the best mimosa in Italy. No less famous and popular with the nobility than nearby Sanremo, on the way back from the Nervia Valley, is Bordighera. It has always been considered the home town of serenity. It has style all of its own and the rhythm of life is more relaxed. Visitors are free from stress, surrounded by a tradition of hospitality the like of which is rarely found. During the Roman Empire, many illustrious personalities had built important villas there. But in Roman times the most important town at the far western end of Liguria was Albintimilium, today's Ventimiglia. The Roman town was on the eastern side, close to the mouth of the river Nervia, where many interesting remains can still be seen, especially those of the theatre. The mediaeval town was to the west, on the hill looking down on the river Roia where we should not fail to spend some time seeing the complex network of narrow streets, the old Romanesque church and the noble palaces. A short distance from the French frontier there is something really exclusive: the area known as the Balzi Rossi. On a cliff rising steeply above the sea there are a number of caves, dry and bathed by the sun, where man lived in the Palaeolithic period, about 240,000 years ago. To the east of Sanremo is the old village of Bussana Vecchia. Abandoned by its inhabitants at the end of last century and reduced to little more than a mass of rubble, it was resurrected by a group of artists from all over Europe, who made it an important centre of artistic production. In the east, the gateway to the Sanremo area is Arma di Taggia, a tourist resort with bathing facilities. Shortly after that, at the beginning of the Argentina Valley into the hinterland we find the towns of Badalucco, Montalto and Carpasio, Molini di Triora and Triora (a typical mountain location famous for its witches), and old Taggia where there are impressive civil and religious buildings, including the Dominican Monastery.
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