two headlands in which they jut into the sea, and the
blue curve of the bay. It is only by climbing to the summit of the Capo
Nero or the Capo Verde that one sees the broken outline of the coast
towards Genoa or the dim forms of the Estrelles beyond Cannes. Nowhere
does the outer world seem more strangely far-off and unreal. But between
headland and headland it is hardly possible to find a point from which
the scene does not group itself into an exquisite picture with the white
gleaming mass of San Remo for a centre. Small too as the space is, it is
varied and broken by the natural configuration of the ground; everywhere
the hills fall steeply to the very edge of the sea and valleys and
ravines go sharply up among the olive woods. Each of these has its own
peculiar beauty; in the valley of the Romolo for instance, to the west
of the town, the grey mass of San Remo perched on a cliff-like steep,
the rocky bed of the torrent below, the light and almost fantastic arch
that spans it, the hills in the background with the further snow range
just peeping over them, leave memories that are hard to forget. It is
easy too for a good walker to reach sterner scenes than those
immediately around; a walk of two hours brings one among the pines of
San Romolo, an hour's drive plunges one into the almost Alpine scenery
of Ceriana. But for the ordinary frequenters of a winter resort the
chief attractions of the place will naturally lie in the warmth and
shelter of San Remo itself. Protected as it is on every side but that of
the sea, it is free from the dreaded mistral of Cannes and from the
sharp frost winds that sweep down the torrent-bed of Nizza. In the
earlier part of the first winter I spent there the snow, which lay thick
in the streets of Genoa and beneath even the palms of Bordighera, only
whitened the distant hilltops at San Remo. Christmas brought at last a
real snowfall, but every trace of it vanished before the sun-glare of
midday. From sunset to sunrise indeed the air is sometimes bitterly
cold, but the days themselves are often pure summer days.

What gives a special charm to San Remo, as to the other health-stations
along the Cornice, is the fact that winter and spring are here the
season of flowers. Roses nod at one over the garden-walls, violets peep
shyly out along the terraces, a run uphill brings one across a bed of
narcissus. It is odd to open one's window on a January morning and count
four-and-twenty different kin