travel experiences from the summer: Emilia Romagna
@ 11:20 pm In the beginning of summer, we were planning on driving up to the North Cape up in Norway. It is the northernmost point in Europe. As the time drew closer and closer, the more uncertain things looked. We decided to browse in the Internet to see if any of the Finnish travel agencies had any last minute vacation packages. We were primarily interested in Madeira, because of good experiences there in the past.
What jumped out at me though was Riccione, in Italy. I was in Cattolica in 2003 for a weekend and liked it. It is the next town south of Riccione. The vacation package was 340 EUR for a week per person, so we changed our minds from Norway to Italy.
We read that it is expensive to eat in Riccione. We also read our hotel had no cooking facilities and was only 2 star. I thought about bringing cooking equipment with me, but ended up bringing only a thermoelectric cooler box, which really was handy. We kept wine, salad, cheese, snacks, etc. in it.
Eating out was indeed very expensive. Italians seem to generally eat 2 or 3 courses. The antipasti and salads were about 3-10 EUR each. Then the first courses were 7-15. The second courses were again 7-20. Then there is the wine and dessert. We ate a lot in piadinerias and pizzerias, which had better prices. The pizzas are better in Finland, though, and you get more for your money. A piadina is a flat bread thingy that is stuffed with vegetables and/or cheese and/or meat. If you do want to go to Italy, I recommend getting a place that has a kitchen so you don’t need to eat out. However, do eat out for some meals. Italian food is good, some of the best in the world.
The grocery store prices were similar to those in Finland. Some prices deviated quite drastically, though. A good bottle of local Sangiovese wine was 2 EUR. Very good was 4 EUR. And the wine was right there in the grocery store, not in any childish monopoly government owned liquor store. You didn’t have to go to many different shops to have wine for your meal. You can eat quite reasonable with food bought from the grocery stores. There is all kinds of good pasta, meats, cheeses, and tasty fresh vegetables. The tasty tomatoes were a pleasant change from the green gassed ones I get at the work canteen here.
The location of Riccione is north of Ancona, south of Rimini, on the Northern coast of the Adriatic. It was about a 4-5 hour train ride to Venice. Venice is worth seeing. We had about 6 hours there, which was a frustratingly miniscule taste of that fantastic city. I won’t bother posting pictures of Venice, since everyone has seen pictures from there.
While I was in Venice, I heard the gondola operators talking to each other in some language that did not sound like Italian at all. I looked it up when I got home and found out it was probably Venetò. Venetò is not a dialect of Italian, but a separate language altogether, which decends from Latin, as does Italian, Romanian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, etc. It has some things in common with Catalan and Spanish that are missing in Italian, like the word “calle” used for street. There are many other languages spoken in Italy, like Emiliana-Romagnolo, Piemontese, Bolognese and so on.
The feeling there was good in Riccione. I never once saw people walking around drunken or acting aggressively. Whole families were walking around late into the evening, pushing little kids in strollers. People were laughing, talking and having fun. It is a place where Italian families go for holiday. While I was there, however, there was a bit of sad news. One 1 and a half year old drowned when he fell into a massage pool. The parents must have been devastated. Not a nice end for their holiday.
San Marino, the oldest republic in Europe, is located about 30 minutes away from Riccione. The oldest part of it is a fortress on top of a mountain. The view from there is spectacular. There are all sorts of interesting little shops up there as well. It has been a tax haven with tax free or low tax shopping, but it is not so much so any longer. It is definitely worth seeing.
Here is a picture from San Marino:
And Gradara, south of Cattòlica:
And a pretty back street scene in Riccione:
