Rimini; Thursday, 21 March, 2019

Having stayed overnight in a hotel by Heathrow I didn’t have to have quite such an early start as I would otherwise had. It was still dark though when I headed out of the hotel towards the terminal.

A smooth journey through Heathrow and over to Bologna and then straight through the airport with my bag being one of the first off the belt. Consequently, I was able to get an early aerobus into the city and ended up at Bologna station with nearly 2 hours until my booked train, or I could just write off my very cheap €5 ticket and get a new €20 ticket for the train an hour earlier. I decided that €25 appeared to be a reasonable price to save an hours standing around needlessly.

Another smooth journey across the Italian countryside to Rimini and then, after managing to pick up bus tickets in butchered Italian, straight onto the bus out to the hotel.

I checked in freshened up and then went for a wander, firstly out onto the beach located just behind the hotel and the park area surrounding it, before catching the bus back into the city centre and going for a wander around some of the Roman remains of the city.

I started near the Roman Amphitheatre, which wasn’t open to look around the inside of, but most of it can be seen from the street, so that wasn’t a major issue. I then followed the old Roman walls round to the Augustus Arch, the main remaining part of the gateway into the city from the direction of Rome. It’s a pretty large structure just standing by itself with nothing else around it, which makes it look a little out of place.

I continue following the walls round to another one of the gates into the city before finding myself by the city’s castle and then down to the top end of the port canal and the Roman bridge that crosses it as the exit from the city to the North.

I spent a long time looking round the ruins and wandering through the city itself before heading back to the bus stop and catching the bus back out to the hotel. I then had a wander along the seafront to find a restaurant to have dinner in. Clearly during the height of summer there is a lot of choice, but on a late March Thursday there wasn’t much choice and I ended up walking up and down the seafront a couple of times before I found somewhere that was open and had a good menu.

After dinner I had a little bit more of a wander along the beach before heading back to the hotel and turning in for the night.