To the contemporary visitor Corso Matteotti today appears unequivocally the main street of the city, both for its centrality, for its general layout, and for the fact that (since 2013) it has been completely pedestrianized. And certainly the visitor's feeling is correct. But what must be remembered, and that today's visitor can only assume, is that on the one hand the street was conceived as a central place of the city not recently, but since almost two centuries (the design of it dates back to 1840, and it has gradually replaced the most important pre-existing street of the lower city, namely Via Palazzo); on the other hand, it has undergone a radical evolution, especially after WWII, moreover common to many central streets. In other words, it has gone from being typical of the "modern" city to being typical of the "postmodern" city. As illustrated by the best connoisseur of the street, the graphic designer Renzo Antonelli (who published an unfortunately very limited edition volume, "Sanremo, la via Vittorio": this is the former name of the street) "since the 1970s grocery stores, bakeries, pastry shops, wine shops, toy showcases, bookstores, foreign pharmacies, artisan shops and art galleries, gradually disappeared, leaving way to a mass offer". So fashion shops (including global brands), bistrots, mobile phone shops, etc. Then, of course, it should be mentioned that especially in this street there are evidences that Sanremo has been the capital of popular song in Italy since 1951, due to the “Festival of the Italian song”. The Corso Matteotti is overlooked by the Ariston Theater, where the Festival takes place in February of every year since 1977 (and at the west end of the street there is the Municipal Casino, where the editions of the Festival were previously held ); at the east end of the street there is the local "Walk of Fame", a series of metal plates set in the pavement with the names of the winners of the Festival since the first year until today. Overall, this street is therefore an unavoidable element to capture the current personality of Sanremo.

It is hard to visit Sanremo without also going for a stroll through the pedestrianised main street, beautiful in day- and nighttime with all the lights. There is a decorative pattern of flagstones on the ground and the mostly traditional houses on the sides are no more than 3 or 4 storey high. Among the most prominent buildings on this street are the 'Ariston Theatre' and the 'Palazzo Borea d'Olmo', now housing the 'Museo Civico'. Begun in the middle of the 19th century the street was originally called the 'Strada Nuova', later named after king Vittorio Emanuele II. After WW II it was renamed - as so many streets in Italy - after Giacomo Matteotti, a socialist politician from the Veneto, who in 1924 as a socialist parlamentarian had held a strong speech against Benito Mussolini. A few days later he was abducted by 'Squadrati' (Blackshirts) and murdered outside Rome. It was the beginning of Mussolini's fascist reign. When walking through the Corso Matteotti one will constantly be reminded of winning songs of the famous Sanremo Music Festival, be it by bronze plaques, information boards or especially by illuminated letters high up on ropes.