Postcard from Bordighera: autumn sun on Italy’s Ligurian coast

Extravagant villas, wonderful food, exotic gardens and a calm beach attracted British expats to Bordighera in the 1880s – and it’s just as enticing today

Leaving my wife and daughter under a parasol on Bordighera’s beach, my teenage son and I set off in search of the largest Ficus macrophylla in western Europe.

The tree, commonly known as the strangler fig, was planted in 1886 by Clarence Bicknell, British botanist, collector, lover of Esperanto and chaplain of Bordighera’s Anglican church.