At our last breakfast at the Rifugio, we chatted with the two German guys who are following the McLaren car outing. Apparently one of the cars had a prang yesterday, hitting a tree and then rolling. Very expensive.
We hit the road about 9:00am after checking out and we were heading for Rimini on the Adriatic Coast via way of Siena and Arezza. We didn't want to enter either of those cities but reckoned we could find a way to navigate around them, and we did. From Arezzo we drove to Sansepolcro, heading for Urbino and then Pesaro on the coast.
At Sansepolcro we took the opportunity of a comfort stop and a coffee at a shopping centre on the outskirts. After that, the road took us up some very twisty roads and up, up, up, and up for a long way, around numerous very tight hairpin bends. Then much the same down the other side for a while. However, the road surface was good and wide enough not to cause any anxiety. Somewhere along the way, I forget exactly where, we spotted a very distinctive bird fossicking on the side of the road. It was a Hoopoe. Wae sued to see these in the garden in Nairobi on their annual migration away from the cold of Europe, so this was the first time we had seen one since then.
The road down through Urbino and on to Pesaro was uneventful and we reached Pesaro around about 2pm or just after. Since we had not had lunch we parked the car and wandered into the town to find a Ristorante where we could get a light lunch. We had a shared pizza and a shared carpaccio which was quite enough to stave off the. Blood-sugar lows.
After lunch we decided to let Karen plot a route for us for Rimini, avoiding the Autostrada. She did the first bit Ok and then got orally confused but by then we knew we were on the correct route so gave her the rest of the day off. The drive to Rimini from Pesaro took us through some, surprise surprise, typical coastal crap development even though we were several kilometres away from the coast. Eventually we got to Rimini and turned eastwards. Looking for the sea that was alleged to be there. Again, Rimini is very much like many other summer holiday beach towns with hotels all along the sea front road. On the other side of the road are numerous concessions carving up the beach in a typically European way. Not my idea of how to spend time at the beach I'm afraid.
Driving along the beach road, we decided to find a likely looking hotel and see if we could get a room for the night. We got a twin room at The Ambassador (****), and they also have parking (for a fee) but reasonable enough for one night. Our room overlooks the beach road, and the beach c on cessions etc over the Adriatic Sea. Tick.
Tomorrow we will probably head north-west then north.
After the regions of the Maremma and Siena, much of the country we drove through was rolling countryside with lots of hay-making being done but we still have not seen a dairy herd anywhere. The hills that we passed through were well forested and there were road signs warning of deer on the road but we still haven't seen one. The day was mostly fine although off to our north a bit were some very dark rain clouds and we drove through the odd light shower after heavier rain had obviously passed through. There was a light sprinkle in Pesaro but not even enough to open the umbrella for.
