Mon 18th – Thurs 21st May
Accommodation: Casa Parco del Mare booked on Booking.com.
Mon 18th May
It was a 4 hr drive up to Rimini from Termoli but we had great weather which helped the journey to go smoothly. Our accommodation in Rimini was an apartment by the beach, rather than being close to the Old Town, which, at this point in time, I’m not sure was the right call. Time will tell no doubt. We had 3 nights here meaning two full days and planned to spend the first full day exploring the Old Town and the second by taking a drive up to San Marino, a land-locked country within Italy.
The Termoli apartment was easy to find and it was exactly as described which was comforting; no surprises. The places was clean, modern and bright and had the bonus of on-site parking where we luckily snagged one of the few free spots. We were both rather tired after the day of driving so did little other than purchase some groceries before heading down to our dinner booking at Chi Burdlaz Garden which was very nice and surprisingly busy for a Monday night. The food was very good though so perhaps that was why.
It was interesting to note how different this area was from Termoli given we were only 4 hours up the coast. Mark described the area as a cross between Coolangatta and Bali and we both noted the different with standard of dress. The elegant clothing on folk who walked with poise and confidence in Termoli was replaced by more of a casual/grunge vibe on folk who loitered and swaggered. This may be a function of having more separation between the Old Town and beach as here, in Rimini, the old town is about 1.5 km inland from the beach and port area.
Tue 19th May
It was a beautiful morning so we set out to explore the beach and promenade. It was the largest beach promenade and beach area we had ever come across but not a single person in the water despite being a reasonable 19 degrees.
Our plan for today was to explore the Old Town which was set about 1.5 km inland from the beach, and at the end of a canal leading up from the beach. We ventured in there after breakfast to explore the historic sites using GPSmycity for a self guided walk as the city is not touristy enough for hosting English speaking walking tours. We did see a huge number of Italian language walking groups though and an even greater number of school / university groups. It was rather like Termoli here though, we were literally the only non-Italians in the area and we stood out a bit and garnered interesting looks from folk. Rimini has a population of around 135,000 though and, despite being much bigger than Termoli, tourism outside of the local Italian market has not expanded.
We had a bit of time on our hands during our self guided walk so we stopped off for Mark to visit the barber which he sorely needed. It was lucky for us that Italians have the metric system as ‘2 millimeters’ was the only universally understood language between Mark and the barber. It was around 1 pm by the time we finished the audio guide and headed back to the apartment to rest up a bit before heading back in there again for a 4pm tour of a site recommended by someone on TripAdvisor and this was of Domus del Chirugo; The Surgeons House. This was a 3rd century Roman house, the home of a surgeon, discovered in 1989 by accident when people doing gardening work discovered frescoe remnants hanging off tree roots from a tree they were uprooting. Archeologists subsequently spent the next 18 years excavating and examining the site and to develop the museum that is there today. Our guide for the tour, Andrea, was excellent and gave a lot of information about the history of Roman settlement in the area as he took us through the site of the original ruins and, then, through the adjacent museum where many of the original artifacts were stored. He helped to explain the mystery of why the Old Town was located so far inland by noting that the coast line had initially been up near the edge of the Roman era settlement and had only subsequently extended outward following years of sediment deposition from the nearby river. It was an excellent tour experience and one I’d highly recommend if you’re ever in Rimini. Andrea could not understand why there was not more tourism in the area given the wealth of Greek and Roman artifacts in the area and that is also has the beach adding for broader attraction.
It was almost 5.30 pm by the time our tour finished so we walked home with one stop for an aperitivo before a night of dining at home.
Wed 20th May: San Marino and Hotel Rosa
Our plan for today had been to take a day trip up the land locked country of San Marino, which was about 25 km and a 40 minute drive inland from Rimini but we had a change of plans. We decided we’d still head there but instead of returning for a final night in Rimini we decided to stay the night up in San Marino. We’d exhausted all there was to see in the area and didn’t feel it worthwhile to make the trip back so we booked a room at Hotel Rosa and headed up there after breakfast.
We made one stop along the way at a smaller hilltop town of Verucchio which had a population of under 10,000 but its claim to fame was having one of the best preserved Malatesta Castles, this being a castle from the reign of The House of Malatesta during the late Middle Ages. I didn’t really think the castle was worth the five euro entry fee but the people watching down in the main square made this stop worthwhile. Verucchio is a very popular sport for cyclists to visit, given the steep hills to reach the town, so we had excellent people watching during our coffee and lunch stop They were large groups of cyclist from all different walks of life but a particularly large group, about 20 or so, from the UK so this kept our interest for our short stay in the town.
It was near 2 pm by the time we arrived at the hotel and we didn’t waste any time. We dropped off our overnight bags in our room and headed straight out to the tourist office to get details for the San Marino audio guide. Most walking tour were in the morning and they were generally all privately run and so very expensive. The audio guide gave us the flexibility of visiting at a time that suited us and enjoying the path at our own pace. It was a great way to get us walking around the city and for us to learn about the key sights in the town.
San Marino is an interesting place as it is the world’s oldest republic, the fifth smallest country in the world (pop around 34,00), only 61 sq km in area and perched on a huge, limestone mountain that was formed eons ago in a period of uplift. It remained neutral during WW2 and afforded respite to over 100,000 during that conflict. I had trouble understanding why San Marino had remained as a separate country all of these years and, after a few revisions of framing my question, AI gave me the following reasoningg which then made sense: San Marino avoided absorption during the Italian unification largely because it already had a long-established independent government and had earned goodwill by giving refuge to Italian nationalist leader Giuseppe Garibaldi in 1849. During the reunification of Italy, Garibaldi and other leaders supported respecting San Marino’s sovereignty rather than annexing it.
Our phone batteries ran flat near the end of our walking tour and so we called it quits with one stop left to cover. It was almost 6 pm by this point anyway and we were quite tired. There is a lot of ‘up hill and down dale’ in San Marino for sure so make sure you are fit and energized if you ever explore this place.
It was 6:30 pm before we ventured back out and we headed downstairs to the terrace of our hotel to have a drink where we bumped into another couple from Australia who were AFL fans. So you can imagine how the conversation flowed after that discovery. From there we wound our way down a short distance to Restaurant Cesaer for dinner and had a delicious meal capping off a wonderful day in San Marino.
We had enjoyed our short time on this part of the Adriatic coast however we both think 2 nights would be sufficient for Rimini but would highly recommend allocating at least one night to stay in San Marino. Our Rimini accommodation was nice but a little too far from the Old Town but our San Marino hotel was great.