Bussana Vecchia climbs silently up the hill, above Sanremo, with the stone houses nestled on top of each other as if they had decided to resist out of pure instinct. From up here the view embraces the Ligurian coast, even if the real show is all in the alleys, narrow, crooked, full of sudden curves and worn arches, they seem designed to slow down those arriving and force them to look around carefully.
The town bears the scars of an earthquake which practically wiped it out in 1887, leaving only hollowed-out walls, broken stairs and a church without a ceiling which has since become the symbol of the village. Instead of being rebuilt, Bussana was abandoned for decades. Then, starting from the end of the 1950s, something happened that no urban plan could have foreseen: the artists returned to making it live.
The artistic community that changed everything
At the end of the twentieth century, while the area remained forgotten by institutions, a small group of Italian and foreign artists decided to refurbish some buildings and use them as ateliers. They were people who were looking for a free space, outside the logic of the market, a place where creation took precedence over everything else.
In the sixties and seventies Bussana Vecchia became a refuge for creatives from all over the world: ceramists, painters, musicians, sculptors. Ruined houses have been revived with recycled materials, improvised roofs, staircases rebuilt with patience and vision. The result is a village that today resembles a living organism more than an open-air museum. Every wall tells a story, every courtyard hides a surprise.
What to see in Bussana Vecchia
Walking around Bussana Vecchia is an experience that must be done without haste and without rigid itineraries. The center is compact and there are no real linear paths: you get lost, and that’s exactly the beauty of it.
The symbolic heart of the village is the church of Sant’Egidio, a fifteenth-century building gutted by the earthquake and never rebuilt. Today all that remains is the façade, the side columns and an interior flooded with light from the sky, where the plants climb the walls and create a suspended atmosphere. It is the point where almost everyone stops, not out of religious devotion but for the silent power of the place.
All around, the alleys intertwine like veins. Under low arches and between cracked walls there are art ateliers, ceramic workshops, small galleries and shops where work is still done by hand today. Each door can hide a different world: sculptures emerging from the vines, paintings hanging on the damp walls, artists working with the door open and music coming out into the street.
Then there are the small bars and taverns that took place in the renovated buildings from the 1970s onwards. Sitting at the stone tables of the Osteria degli Artisti, one of the historic points of the village, means entering a long tradition of meetings and chats between creatives and travellers.
The atmosphere of the village today
Visiting Bussana Vecchia is not like entering a restored and perfect village, all shop windows and tidy flowers, because here there is disorder, cracks, strange silences and sudden flashes of colour. The life of the town moves at its own pace, with resident artists, curious tourists, some foreigners who spend entire summers fixing up their house and those who stop only an hour to see the church.
On summer afternoons, the light filters through the stones and changes the colors of the walls, while in the quieter months the atmosphere becomes almost unreal, suspended, as if Bussana could disappear and reappear at any moment. It’s a place you don’t immediately understand, but it leaves something behind.
A story still open
Behind the beauty and vitality of Bussana Vecchia lies a complicated legal situation. The houses and ateliers formally belong to the State Property, and for years the State and the local community have been discussing taxes, compensation and property. Many inhabitants live with the prospect of having to leave the spaces they have restored and inhabited for decades, amidst appeals, public auctions and postponed decisions.
This uncertainty has accompanied the life of the village for a long time, but it has not stopped its rebirth. Indeed, in some way, it contributes to making it an unrepeatable place, suspended between ruin and resistance.
How to get there and when to go
Bussana Vecchia is located in the hinterland of Sanremo and can be reached by car following a rather narrow hilly road, with curves and hairpin bends that go up among the olive trees. It is also possible to arrive on foot from Arma di Taggia along a panoramic path that crosses the Mediterranean scrub and offers spectacular views of the sea.
The best time to visit it is spring and early autumn, when the days are clear and the village is not crowded, while in summer the atmosphere is more lively, with a greater influx of tourists, and you can find open ateliers and various outdoor evenings. Winter, on the other hand, presents a more intimate, almost secret face, which makes the experience even more evocative.
