Historical gardens by the sea

These gardens are a part of the historical city gardens. 
At the end of the 1870s, La Spezia experienced major modernization and expansion works, culminating with the construction of the Royal Navy Base, whose building works began in 1865. The creation of gardens close to the sea allowed to establish a new building area on Viale Mazzini that, back then, was a populated seaside promenade. 
From 1896, the Promenade Commission submitted the City Council a project to create the new garden areas close to the sea. 
Traditionally, gardens had a square shape with a flowerbed at the center, alternated to elliptical transversal elements corresponding to the adjacent city streets: this decoration with palm trees can be noticed where Via Tommaseo closes on Scalinata Fusco (literally, Fusco Stairway) going uphill.
At the beginning of the 20th century, gardens were delimited by a row of plane trees. However, soon they were replaced by rows of Canary palm trees. These palm trees grew until the snowfall of 1929 that damaged them and they had to be cut down. 
Today, these streets show rows of tall palm trees, very resistant to cold and together creating a unique setting.