A Heaven for Mountain Bikers

Name: San Romolo
Item: San Romolo
Author: KarlH

If you are looking for an area to practice your skills as a Mountain Biker you have found what you are looking for. The hills and forest around San Romolo are known for its well preserved mountain bike paths.

San Romolo is named after a Saint who lived here and who also gave the name to the city of Sanremo. In addition to this, the importance of this fraction was related to the large amounts of timber which was taken from the forests (pine and chestnut) in the area. It was during the medieval when the field, nowadays called “il prato”, was completely released from trees to create a storage area for the timber before it was transported down to the valley and it is in fact around that area the small village of San Romolo was developed.

Between 1936 and 1981, Sanremo and Monte Bignone used to be connected with a cable way: Funivia Sanremo – Monte Bignone, which extended 7688 meters from Sanremo to the top of the mountain. Parts of the cable way structure and its cable cars still exists and are visible today, but the cable way was closed down once and for all in 1981.

The cable way was a project by Mr Pietro Agosto in 1929 and the construction, which started in 1935 by “Compagnia Italiana Funivie” was breaking all records: the distance between the pier at San Romolo station to the pier at the end station Monte Bignone, was incredibly 1700 meters. Despite the original idea with the cable way, a tourist attraction, the project was not as successful as expected. With the accounts showing a constant deficit it was a fact in 1981 that the cable way had to be closed down. However, still today many of the inhabitants in the Sanremo region are very much involved in the idea to re-establish the old cable way as an incentive for the tourism in San Romolo Natural Park.

Cinque Valli

The Italian and French Riviera and the Valleys

San Romolo

San Romolo

Login