Passeggiata dell'Imperatrice

The Passeggiata dell'Imperatrice is Sanremo's seafront promenade, a palm-lined walkway that stretches along the western waterfront and remains the social centre of the town at all hours. The name honours Empress Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, who spent several winters here in the 1870s and put Sanremo on the map for aristocratic European tourists.

The promenade is at its best in the early evening, when Sanremo's residents do their passeggiata — the Italian institution of walking, looking, and being seen. The palms are lit at night, the sea is dark and close, and the Belle Époque hotels behind you provide a backdrop that feels unchanged since the 1900s. The art nouveau Casino Municipale anchors the western end.

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The promenade was named after Empress Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, wife of Tsar Alexander II, who wintered in Sanremo in the 1870s. The Russian aristocracy's enthusiasm for the Ligurian coast was so pronounced that by the 1880s the town had a Russian Orthodox church, a Russian newspaper, and a settlement large enough that locals called part of the western seafront "la Russia." The empress's patronage helped establish Sanremo as a fashionable destination for northern European money.

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