A trip to Rimini
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
We took the train to Rimini on the Adriatic coast. It takes about fifty minutes in a comfortable high-speed train from Bologna station. The station was the location of a terrorist bomb that killed eighty people in 1980 perpetrated by the Red Brigade. The station clock remains at the same time as when the bomb exploded. It’s a sad reminder that Italy has had its share of terrorist incidents.
Rimini has fifteen kilometres of broad sandy beach and hundreds of hotels, it’s where Italians go for their holiday. The town itself is delightful as a destination, and in May it’s very quiet.
The bridge of Tiberius is a complete Roman bridge started by the first Roman Emperor Augustus and finished by his successor Tiberius. It is over two thousand years old and still in use! Next to the bridge is a delightful district of colourful old houses, some of them decorated with murals. I was seduced by the gelateria and had the best ice-cream I have ever eaten.
Rimini was the terminus of several Roman roads and was a walled town until the Fascists took them down. The central Piazza Cavour has three palazzos down one side and a vast Victorian theatre on another side, which is currently being renovated.
The main street in Rimini is the Corso d’Augusto which is a pedestrianised shopping street with a very relaxed ambience. It has a market where Julie was able to buy a new bag becasue her old one was a bit scruffy. All my bags are a bit scruffy, a bit like me, but they still function. We stopped at a tourist cafe for a natural break. The loo was an undignified squat-and-drop, but when you gotta go you gotta go.
At the end of the Corsa is the Arch of Augustus, a Roman triumphal arch that once had a bronze statue of Big Gus on top of it. It’s the oldest of its type in the world and is big and impressive.
Beyond the arch is a longitudinal park which goes to the beach. It is woody and shady, but you do have to look out for speeding cyclists sharing the footpath. The beach is hundreds of metres wide and is clean soft sand. There were very few people sunbathing, but there were sunshades and loungers for thousands. The season hasn’t started yet, but they are ready for the masses.
Julie had found a “reasonably priced” seafood restaurant on TripAdvisor, La Pisda E IL Mare. I looked it up on Google Maps and found it was forty feet away across the road, a very convenient coincidence! I found it impossible to resist the Frito Misti, seafood and sliced vegetables deep fried in batter, basically sophistication fish and chips.
Continuing along the seafront we reached the Porto Canale, which is only a few kilometres long and terminates just after the Roman bridge. It is the fishing port of Rimini with dozens of boats which harvest (and I’m guessing here) clams and mussels for the many seafood restaurants in the area. There’s also a lighthouse built in the early 18th century which doubled as a lookout for Turkish pirates that raided Rimini for slaves.
Our train was late, so we had an overpriced beer in a cafe near the station and waited another hour, bummer! But we had a very relaxing day in Rimini, which is a charming town.
timharnesstravels 