I went on an Omnilingua guided tour of Bordighera, the second town on the way to the French border from Sanremo. It is also an utterly beautiful spot on this Ligurian Riviera. Our guide was Davide.
Bordighera has about 10 000 inhabitants, so it is much smaller than Sanremo. Our first stop was the Park Hotel, an erstwhile grand hotel that has fallen into complete disuse and neglect. It looks like a forsaken station.
But its garden is lush and beautiful. Here we saw quite a few palm stumps or dead palm trees. This stretch of Riviera was still called Riviera delle Palme eighty years ago, but an insect plague hit the palms, and most of them succumbed to the borer beetles’ attacks. We saw a few palms with holes in the trunk!
Bordighera’s streets look very much like Sanremo’s Belle Époque profile, with lovely villas originally built as holiday accommodation. Now we wend our way to Via Romana.
The British, I am told, liked to build with naked stone.
On Via Romana we passed a public library, unique in that it contained a prodigious amount of foreign language books – if I say prodigious: millions! All for the vacationers of the 1800s who had no TV and wanted to read.
A little way down the road this fantastical sight awaited us:
…. the ruined shell of a former 6-star luxury hotel, Hotel Angst. The story of this hotel is the best story Bordighera has to offer.
In the 1870s a Swiss entrepreneur and dreamer by the name of Adolf Angst decided he wanted to profit from the steady stream of British and European elite flowing to the Italian Riviera in the winter months – he would build the grandest European luxury hotel in Bordighera! So Hotel Bordighera came into being. However, it was soon destroyed by an earthquake. Not to be discouraged, he looked for a property to build a new hotel. There was an old woman called Ghella who lived in a small house on the ideal property for his venture, with acres and acres of lovely forest and gardens. He made her offer upon offer for her land, but she simply would not give it up. Then one night in 1887 she burned to death in her house. No-one ever found her remains, but Angst bought her land and started construction immediately. Hotel Angst could accommodate up to 200 guests, had a huge staff including gardeners, chefs, hairdressers, cleaners, waitresses, butlers – all to pander to the whims of the English upper crust. There were ball rooms, smoking rooms, snooker rooms, bridge rooms, tennis courts (20 of them!), lounges, a large library, billowing gardens with private nooks, in fact everything fit for a king, or queen, as it turned out. Queen Victoria booked out the hotel for her and her retinue, but sadly her visit never materialised.
Now began the reign of the Spook. At night strange things began to happen in the hotel. Doors opened by themselves and slammed shut, the electricity would go out and come on again just when everyone was at their wits’ end, the mirrors would go dark. Footsteps were heard in the corridors, and every now and then a cackling laughter would resound. In the hall there was an enormous antique mirror that someone had salvaged from Ghella’s house, and this was where the ghost came into the house at night and exited again at the crack of dawn. Mr Angst covered the mirror with a table cloth, causing a wailing and finally an inhuman shriek. He believed himself to be rid of the ghost, but she went on causing havoc.
The fortunes of Hotel Angst were not to endure. Times changed, the Big War sounded the death knell over the burgeoning tourism of the region, an earthquake shattered much of the building, and the Ghost of Hotel Angst never left…..
However, after a whole century it is now being revamped, but this time into apartments. The facade will stay, as will the main social halls. Let’s see what happens…. :))
The proposed new Villa Angst
Via Romana now took us all along the spine of the hill towards the sea. En route we stopped by a villa named the Clarence Bicknell Museum. After googling Clarence Bicknell, I ask myself how an amazing, indefatigable Mensch like that could sink into such relative obscurity! He was a multi-faceted man of many talents, but with an enduring passion for the flowers of the Italian Riviera. His legacy is immense! This man was born and bred near London, grew up in very privileged circumstances, and moved to Bordighera around 1880. He was to remain in the region for the rest of his life, which ended in 1918.
Soon we stopped to take in a beautiful view.
And by the roadside was a weathered reproduction of Claude Monet’s painting of this exact view! Monet apparently came on holiday to Bordighera for 3 weeks, but wrote home to Paris to solicit more money, because this place was SO beautiful, wherever he turned, there he saw a picture waiting to be painted. He stayed for 3 months. Monet was smitten with the whole area, and he probably also lured a few of his Impressionist friends here.
Now the road took us on tree lined, parklike meanderings until we emerged on a fort and cannon site overlooking the little church of Sant’ Ampelio.
The church sits right on the beach, but this is a special beach. It is a Blue Flag beach, and its water is crystal clear.
One more thing about Bordighera is the larger than life statue of Queen Margherita of Savoy, the first queen of Italy. I only got a fleeting glimpse of her. She overlooks the sea. And Davide tells me he thinks the Pizza Margherita is named after her….
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