Санремо

Sanremo is where Italian song holds its annual constitutional convention. The Festival della Canzone Italiana — born at the Casino in 1951, resident since 1977 at the Teatro Ariston — is far more than a competition: for one February week the nation argues, votes and weeps over its songs, careers are made in an evening, and Europe took notes — the Eurovision Song Contest was modelled on Sanremo's formula. The town wears the role year-round, its walk of fame and the Ariston's marquee keeping the melody between editions.

Music's pedigree here is symphonic too: the Orchestra Sinfonica di Sanremo, among Italy's historic symphonic foundations, has played the Riviera's seasons since the century's turn, heir to the casino orchestras of the belle époque — the same wintering world that hosted Tchaikovsky in 1877--78, composing and convalescing under the palms, or the Empress Maria Alexandrovna, who gave the palm-lined corso its name. The Liberty casino and the Russian church's onion domes remember that season of Europe.

The setting sells itself: the Riviera dei Fiori's flower fields — Sanremo's blooms supply the continent — the old town "La Pigna" coiling up its hill, Portosole's yachts, and each March the Milan--Sanremo classic delivering cycling's spring monument to the finish line. A festival, an orchestra, a flower market with a sea: Sanremo keeps Italy humming.