The defensive tower of Ospedaletti was completed in January 1597, and for a minor piece of military architecture on the Riviera it is rare to know the exact month. The national heritage catalogue records it under the bureaucratic name «Torrione del 1597» and assigns it to local craftsmen of the late sixteenth century; in town everyone calls it the Torrione Saraceno, a nickname that points to the raids from the sea against which the Ligurian coast armed itself in that century. It stands at number 4 of via Pio VII, in the old core, and it is state property.
What to see
The tower is the second piece of a defence conceived in two stages. The first was the lookout and signalling tower put up in 1558 along the road to punta San Pietro, high above the water: its job was to see far and raise the alarm. This one, some forty years later, went up down below instead, among the houses, where the alarm arrived and people had to take shelter. Reading them as a pair is the right way to understand the town: a handful of fishermen and olive groves that within two generations equipped itself with two towers.
Around it lies the old part of Ospedaletti, which grew along the coastal strip between capo Nero and capo Sant'Ampelio, while the modern town climbed the slopes closing the bay. A few steps away is the little church of Sant'Erasmo, first built in the fourteenth century by the Knights of Saint John, whose hospice gave the town its very name; a little further runs corso Regina Margherita, the avenue opened after 1880, when a Paris property company chose the village as a holiday resort and redrew its plan with twelve new streets.
Visiting
Via Pio VII is a narrow lane in the old centre, a few minutes from the seafront: the tower is looked at from outside, it is not a museum and has neither opening hours nor a ticket. The street is named after Pope Pius VII, who stopped in the nearby church of Sant'Erasmo on 11 February 1814. Ospedaletti no longer has its railway station, closed in 2001 when the line moved into a tunnel further inland: the old track along the sea has become the Riviera cycle path, and riding in from Sanremo is still the easiest way to get here.
Our editors' tip
We suggest taking the two towers in the order in which they worked: first climb towards punta San Pietro, where the lookout scanned the gulf, then come down into town to the tower that was the last line. It is a handful of minutes of ascent and it completely changes how you read the building. If you can, keep it for the late afternoon: the raking light from the west is what brings out the texture of the stone.