Churches Galore! (Italia, Part II)

After our wonderful time in the Cinque Terre, CJ and I boarded the train for San Remo. Here's a map of the whole region, which should be interactive--that is, you should be able to click on it and explore for yourself some of the areas I mention. If you like.

View Italia in a larger map

I'm just going to jump right in, and let most of these photos speak for themselves. (Who am I kidding, I have lots to say about them, too!)

Here, the Russian Orthodox church in San Remo, which is a sight to see.

Apparently Tsar Alexander and his wife (whose name escapes me) were frequent holiday-makers in San Remo, and they built a church there. Interesting.

Here's me in front of the pretty yellow church across from our hotel.

I just really like this picture! I like bikes. What is this bike doing all the way up there?

Nice storage facilities in old town San Remo, apparently!

Left and Right: Some other really neat buildings we saw on our ventures through San Remo.

The beautiful stonework leading up to the Santuario della Madonna della Costa, a lovely church.

Inside, an elderly woman relayed to us in animated Italian the history of the church and the beautiful sculptures within, unfortunately the pics didn't turn out very well and we understood very little of what she told us.

One day, we decided to take a public bus up into the hilly region north of San Remo, which was a somewhat scary and nauseating experience, but was well worth it when we got off the bus! See what I mean:

The ruin of the Chiesa Romanica (Roman church) of San Nicolo, in the little village of Bajardo. This church was destroyed in 1887 by an earthquake which occurred during a service and caved in the roof, killing about 100 people. The church lies on a site once a shrine to druids, and has been the site of castles and churches since. It's so interesting to be in a place like this, where the pieces come together into a scrapbook of history. There are no signs, nothing to tell what's what--just the knowledge that some of this could be thousands of years old, while some of it only a couple of hundred, while still some of it even more recent.

Inside the church ruin, looking out through a barred window toward the valley to the south. The old columns were really beautiful.

Above: Some of the pretty decorations within the church ruin. On the right, the ceiling of the entryway. On the left, an altar, perhaps dedicated to St. Anthony.

Above: The view from behind the church ruin.

On a clear day, supposedly one can see into the Maritime and Ligurian Alps. On this cloudy day, unfortunately, we didn't quite see that spectacular view--but it was still awfully pretty.

A beautiful column, standing alone just outside the ruin.

CJ looks out over the valley in the medieval section of the village of Ceriana.

This was after we found a little cafe in the village to eat lunch--when the little restaurant owner realized we spoke English (and very little Italian), he ran out of the restaurant and down the street to find a man to take our order in English. Not necessary, but sweet-and entertaining! Of course it was either spaghetti or hamburgers. We both ordered the spaghetti, which was good--but unfortunately came with meat sauce. I was too hungry to be a strict vegetarian, and the man had been so sweet I hated to complain, so I just picked around it!

A view of France, to the west, from the beach at Ventimiglia.

I read about this series of Roman ruins at a site called Albintimilium, in the village to the west of us (called Ventimiglia). We decided to try and find them, as they included a Roman Theatre and I have always wanted to see one. Unfortunately, it was closed, but the theatre was perched right off the main road and we were able to see it from the sidewalk! This site dates back to the first half of the 2nd century. Fun to see the roots of modern day performance art and theatre!

CJ and I had an awesome dinner on our last night in Sanremo together. In front of me, you can see a demolished plate of Tiramisu. YUM. It was the best one I had the whole trip! (I tried several, in order to compare and contrast. A very systematic approach involved in finding good Tiramisu. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.)