Bordighera is located at the bottom of the western Ligurian coast, Liguria Ponente, with neighbors such as Sanremo in Italy and Menton in France. Bordighera has had two heydays, one at the end of the 19th century when there was a strong British colony here and then during the 70s when tourism and the flower industry were at their strongest. Today, you are met by proud residents of a very genuine city where Italian dominates with a nice feeling of "dolce far niente".

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The location

Bordighera's location means that there is always a lot to do and discover here. Take the train to the southwest and you are soon in Monte Carlo or one of the neighboring villages of Eze or Beaulieu-sur-Mer, if you instead take the train to the northeast, you will pass villages such as Alassio, Spotorno and reach Genova within two hours. Bordighera is located in an area known as Cinque Valle, not to be confused with Cinque Terre. Cinque Valle consists of five valleys where five rivers flow into the sea, all with their source up in the French Alpes Maritimes and the Ligurian Alps. Here, within 20 minutes by car, there are fantastic opportunities for hiking and cycling, either on your own or with guides. Here you can hike along the rivers up into the mountains and on hot days take a cooling dip in lovely lagoons. You can also visit one of the fantastic medieval towns of Dolceaqua, Perinaldo, Apricale or Busanna Vecchia - the list is almost endless. In winter, you can advantageously combine life on the Riviera with a few days of skiing in the famous winter sports resort of Limone, only 70 km from the coast and easy to reach by train.

The climate

Bordighera is located on the 43rd parallel which is as far south as Pisa and Florence. Its sheltered location with the Alps behind it to the north and to the west means that you will find a special microclimate here. The area around Bordighera has for several years been named the place with the best climate in Italy due to mild, pleasant winters, but also summers with a lack of extreme heat that can be experienced more on the Italian peninsula. Here you can find a number of plants such as the African date palm, which nowhere else grows wild this far north.

Mare, mare, mare - The sea

As it is in almost all of Italy, life revolves around the sea. In the evening, the fishing boats go out and come in with a full catch early in the morning so that they can then be sold to restaurants and private individuals at the market in Bordighera. Directly outside Bordighera, about 700 meters out, is a marine nature reserve. Out here there is a rich marine wildlife and you can see both dolphins and whales all year round. In the harbor there is also a fishing boat which, four evenings a week during the summer, fries the day's catch on site and serves it at a reasonable cost. There are no chairs and tables, so you sit where there is room. Of course, there is also a boat that sells drinks. Unknown where this was caught... In the harbor you can rent various forms of watercraft such as kayaks, SUP and various sailboats. I think you can even rent jet skis, but with the marine license requirement and the high cost, I've never seen anyone do that so far.

Sun and beach

Along the six kilometer long beach between Bordighera and Ventimiglia there are all the possibilities for enjoyment for those who like sun and salty baths. The beaches in Bordighera have a mixture of sand and stone so we always invest in swimming shoes, if nothing else to avoid the hot sand on the way down to the water. There are plenty of beach clubs that rent sunbeds and parasols, but there is also plenty of space on public beaches where you bring your own parasol, towel and small chair. This does not prevent you from having full access to fantastic food and drink at the restaurants along the beach. It seems that the acceptance here is great for the public beaches, even among Italians. Maybe it's the proximity to France where there are the most public beaches. In any case, in addition to showers, you now also have free booths for changing on most beaches, which is a nice convenience. There is so much more to tell about Bordighera and its surroundings, but we will come back to that. I can promise that Bordighera has an interesting history…