On the last Sunday of January of each year, Sanremo is literally invaded by a wave of bright and bright colors: on floats adorned for the occasion by the various towns of the province of Imperia and Savona, parade through the streets of Sanremo most beautiful flowers of the Riviera, artistically arranged to form large and wonderful themed floral compositions. The theme changes with each edition of the event – in recent years there has been “The great interpreters of the Festival”, “Television”, “The Olympics” – and a technical and artistic jury assigns a score to each float and rewards the best . The wagon of the municipality of Sanremo is, as always, out of competition.
The floral compositions that cover the floats are created in a single day, during the night before the race, between Saturday and Sunday: the preparatory phases last months, but the infloration is carried out in such a short period of time to have flowers always fresh and full of vitality. And this is how the skill of the flower growers and the designers of the wagons, on which faces, clothes, animals, natural environments and fantastic figures are formed as if by magic, all created only with flowers, offers every year a breathtaking spectacle that echoes the eyes and hearts of the thousands of visitors who flocked to Sanremo to take part in the event that consecrated Sanremo as the only and authentic City of Flowers.
The compositional style and the unique beauty of the flowers of Sanremo has taken on a very specific name, now established in the world floricultural panorama for perfection and elegance – it is the Sanremo Italian Style, the purely Sanremo floral style characterized by distinctive peculiarities and specific requirements: the compositions must only use floricultural products typical of the period in which they were created, in such a way as to make the season recognizable at a glance, give the right emphasis to the olfactory component and to the role of perfume, favoring plant material by minimizing the presence of paper products, etc.
In recent years, the competition between the floats has been joined by that of the misses combined with each float: homegrown beauties whose bucolic beauty completes the splendor of the floral compositions they are surrounded by.
The Corso Fiorito took place for the first time in January over a century ago, in 1904, under the name of Feast of the Goddess Flora , during which a series of carriages adorned with flowers resulting from the crossroads of the most brilliant botanists of the time made a fine show along the streets of Sanremo. Over the years the event changed its name many times – Battaglia dei Fiori, Getto dei Fiori, passing through Italy in bloom after the war, up to today’s Corso Fiorito . After an interruption that lasted almost fifteen years, from 1966 to 1980, the event over time has become one of the main reasons for tourist attraction for the city of Sanremo. Every year the streets of the city are stormed by about 60,000 visitors from all over Italy and from all over the world. The event is long-awaited and renowned that at the end of the event the spectators unleash a sort of peaceful “looting” of the floats, with the aim of grabbing some small – or in many cases large – floral souvenirs to take home as a souvenir. : a sort of “tradition” that has now become normality on the occasion of the Flowery Course .
Not to mention the millions of viewers who watch the event live on RAI 1 from the cameras of the Linea Verde broadcast, which every year offers the whole of Italy the images of this wonderful floral event.
The Corso Fiorito opens the way to another very important anniversary that is based in Sanremo, the Sanremo Festival, although sometimes the floral event takes place after the singing festival – which usually takes place in February. The municipal council has in fact probably decided to definitively move the competition of wagons from the last Sunday of January to the last of March, apparently to reduce the cost of flowers and run less risk of bad weather.
The Carri Fioriti are also part of a series of events that are renewed every year under the name of Sanremo in fiore – including exhibitions, flower contests, musical performances by bands and folkloristic groups and much more – during which Sanremo finds itself permeated by the gracefulness and scent that only the famous and inimitable flowers of our city, the City of Flowers precisely, they know how to offer.
Events related to Sanremo in fiore are in turn part of a cycle of provincial events, inaugurated in 2003 and known as Spring festival , which provides, as you can well understand, a dense calendar of events distributed throughout the spring period, from 7 January to 18 May, designed specifically for tourists who choose Sanremo and the Riviera not only in the summer.
Also part of these is another event that sees flowers as protagonists, that is the great and prestigious Flower Festival , hosted by the Palafiori halls and organized by UCFlor, the Floriculturists’ Cooperative Union of the Riviera. The Flower Festival is one of the most important showcases for florists and flower designers from all over the world, a space where they can exhibit their works and learn new techniques and new styles from the masters of the field. On the occasion of this event, exhibitions, exhibitions, conferences, meetings and some competitions are organized such as the Sanremo Bouquet , whose winner wins the honor (and the burden) of being the creator and creator of the floral decorations present on the stage of the Ariston Theater during the evenings of the Sanremo Festival.
