San Remo in 1 day
San Remo in 1 day
We traveled for 1 day from Nice, by FlixBus bus, departure from Cote d'Azure airport (Terminal 2, platform 7). Tickets were bought online the night before (you won’t be able to buy a ticket today via the Internet), but some passengers bought directly from the driver when boarding, the cost is 4.99 E. 2 hours, price from 12 E per OW In addition, the railway station is located almost outside the city, the nearest public transport stop is more than 1 km on foot)
Sent up to a minute. It should be noted that there are no more stops in Nice, except at the airport. Immediately from the airport, the bus taxis onto the ring road, where, past the newest stadium of the Allianz Riviera, it begins to go deeper into the mountains towards the Italian border, the road passes through the mountains, there are tunnels, a lot of bridges over the gorges, at least 100 meters deep offhand.
On the left along the way - we passed a sign to the city of Menton, next to the symbol of the city - a huge lemon (Menton is considered the lemon capital of France). We crossed the border without stopping. The route passed far from the cities, but on both sides of the road (both below - in the gorges, and at the top - in the mountains, settlements of various sizes quickly flashed by). The seashore was also visible from time to time. For a few minutes, the Principality of Monaco flashed under us - its views from above turned out to be greatly spoiled by freshly built multi-storey residential and office buildings (20+ floors), on our previous trip to Monaco three years ago there were no skyscrapers yet, only construction cranes towered. Finally, San Remo was marked at the bottom. We descended into the city along a steep serpentine. We immediately enter the main street (via Guiliermo Marconi, which turns into via Roma). It rains from time to time.
A stop for disembarking passengers near the bus station (there are no FlixBus signs), boarding in the opposite direction - at a public transport stop, almost opposite, go 50 meters east, there is only one stop, it is impossible to confuse. The fact that San Remo is a city focused on tourists is confirmed by the prices in the newspaper and souvenir shop at the bus station: the map of the city costs an unrealistic 8 euros! Naturally, I prepared for the trip in advance and printed the map from the Internet. (On-line maps and navigators have not yet mastered).
From the windows of the bus we could see supermarkets of well-known European chains “COOP” and “LiDL”. We decide to visit. Prices are pleasantly surprised after the French ones. Back to the embankment we go through the park of tropical plants, the beach is quite small, mostly marinas for yachts. On the other side of the street are swanky hotels, mostly in the art deco style, steep perpendicular streets go up into the old districts.
San Remo's public transport is buses, although the Internet says that there are trolleybuses that are very common for Italy. Didn't see one. From Piazza Cesare Battistini, a pedestrian zone (Corso Matteoti) departs upwards, on which one of the main attractions of the city is located - the Municipal Casino (gambling establishments in Italy are not exactly banned, but somehow they are not advertised or not popular). Gambling Italians go to play to their neighbors - to Monaco or Slovenia, where the gambling business is actively advertised. If you walk along Corso Matteoti to the crossroads with via Gaudio, you can see the building of the Ariston Theater, which hosts the famous annual festival of Italian pop songs. But we have some other plans. After wandering through the narrow winding streets of the old city, we exit to Piazza Bresca - this square is famous for the San Siro Cathedral, an ancient fountain, as well as a concentration of Italian cafes and restaurants,
as well as traditional local shops - meat, cheese, wine, fruit and vegetables, etc. We have lunch in one of these cafes. The prices are humane - "chef's salad" and a large pizza with tuna cost 16 euros (+2 euros "coperto"). A little higher is Piazza Mercato (Market Square), with the market no longer working at this time, as well as an old, partly ruined tower (Torre della Ciapella). Then we return to the embankment along via Feraldi and Corso Mombello. These streets are very fashionable, all the buildings of the Baroque era are very representative. On the waterfront you can see the ancient fort (Forte de Santa Tecla). Sea fortresses are uncharacteristic of Italy, obviously affected by the proximity of France, where such medieval fortifications are much more common. It starts to rain again from time to time. We are no longer going to Villa Nobel (quite a long time in both directions). Just relaxing on the waterfront. A strong sea breeze blows from the sea. For myself, I deduced an unexpected pattern (I can be wrong,
of course): if the coast is pebbly, the aroma of the sea is not very noticeable, but if it is sandy, the air is simply saturated with sea salt. The return bus in our evening (at 20:25) came to the stop much in advance, the bus arrived 15 minutes earlier, besides us, 5 more people got on. The driver, having compared the number of passengers with the list of those who bought tickets online, drove off even 3 minutes earlier. So if you didn’t buy a ticket online, but want to buy it when boarding (there is such an opportunity), don’t come right up to the departure time, the bus can leave earlier… extreme on our trip. The driver (and the crew was already different - but also Italian), was very carried away by overtaking passing vehicles on the road (including in tunnels - which is prohibited by traffic rules), for which he was already stopped by the French police when crossing the Italy-France border.
He didn’t talk to the policemen for long, but at the same time the law enforcement officers decided to check the passengers’ passports (they didn’t scan the documents, they didn’t check the presence / absence of Schengen visas, they just visually compared the photo in the passport with the owner’s face. No questions. ) True, one French-speaking passenger has a passport it didn’t turn out, and after 15-minute disputes with law enforcement officers, he showed them a certain card with a pasted photo (something like an official ID, it doesn’t look like a passport or a driver’s license), which satisfied the latter. Despite the delay, they arrived at Terminal 2 exactly on time (21:25). Having made a short shuttle ride to Terminal 1, we managed to catch the last bus (about 21:50-21:55) going along the Promenade, since public transport in Nice finishes work quite early
