The Riviera is a narrow belt of coast that lies between the mountains and the sea all round the Gulf of Genoa in the north of Italy, extending from Nice on the west to Spezia on the east. Part of the Riviera is in France and part in Italy. The Riviera di Ponente (“the coast of the setting sun”) lies between Nice and Genoa. The part between Genoa and Spezia is called the Riviera di Levante (“the coast of the rising sun”).
The climate of the Riviera is very mild, and it is one of the most beautiful regions on earth. All this district is open to the south and sheltered by the mountains on the north and east. The landscape is delightfully varied,—here a bold and lofty promontory, there a wooded hill, and down near the coast richly cultivated plains. The traveler passes steep and frowning cliffs, whose bases are washed by the surf of the Mediterranean, whose summits are crowned by the venerable ruins of towers erected in bygone ages for protection against pirates.
Many of the towns in the Riviera are situated in fertile valleys or on picturesque hills; while others are perched like nests among the rocks. Little churches and chapels peering from the somber foliage of cypresses, and gigantic gray pinnacles of rock frowning upon the smiling plains, frequently enhance the charms of the scenery; while the vast expanse of the Mediterranean, with its ever changing hues, dazzles the eye with its beauty.
Olives, with their grotesque and gnarled stems, are grown on great plantations in the Riviera. The warm climate produces luxuriant growths of figs, vines, citrons, oranges, oleanders, myrtles, and aloes. Bright green pine forests meet the eye, and even palms are seen occasionally.
Thousands of visitors spend the winter in the chain of towns and villages that stretches from one end of the Riviera to the other,—Nice; Monte Carlo in Monaco, the little independent principality; Mentone, the last town in the French Riviera; Bordighera; Pegli; Nervi; Spezia; and many others. In summer the Italians visit these resorts for sea bathing.
The only drawback to the Riviera is its liability to earthquakes, of which there were four in the last century alone.
A railway runs close along the shore all through the Riviera. The distance from Nice to Genoa is 116 miles, and from Genoa to Spezia 56 miles. In the latter stretch the railroad burrows through the many projecting headlands by means of more than 80 tunnels.
The poets Lord Byron and Shelley both lived and wrote on the shores of the Gulf of Spezia, and Charles Dickens, the great English novelist, wrote his well known story, “The Chimes,” at Genoa.
COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION, INC.