19 February 2025 – Cesenatico

Miles driven today = 92

Total Miles to date = 1,114

Woods and beaches are the places where Lisa is at her happiest and having spent yesterday in Modena the last thing we really wanted to do was go stomping around another city today.  So as we approached Bologna and the A1 dived South we picked up the A14 and kept on rolling all the way to the Adriatic coast and the resort town of Cesenatico.  We were all parked up by midday, so after a quick lunchtime butty in the van we went to have a look at the sea.

The beach is of the fine, golden sand variety and had recently been heavily raked to remove any detritus, but the shoreline was littered with shells.  Cockles, mussels, razor clams and oysters were the more common ones we recognized but there were others as well.

Cesenatico is fairly low rise with one notably incongruous exception.

We walked for a mile and a half until the beach was abruptly interrupted by a pier guarding a canal which leads inland to the harbour and the old town.  There we found a number of the lift nets we spotted last year elsewhere along the Adriatic coast.  I call them “Keralan nets” but only because I first saw the concept used in Southern India when we were there a few years ago.  I’ve no idea who came up with the design first.

There was a good deal of building work going on around the lighthouse but we were surprised to see a number of restaurants were doing a decent lunchtime trade.

This is the canal leading into the central part of Cesenatico.  It’s now mainly lined with eateries and tourist shops but a lot of the craft moored up here are still working boats.  Many appeared to be shellfish dredgers.

The canal was originally designed by that ever so clever chap Leonardo Da Vinci and this is part of the original pier from the 16^th or 17^th century.  The posts which supported the wall were driven to a depth of 5 to 6 metres into the silt.

This is the old fish market.

The buildings are painted in rather more garish tones to the pastel hues we saw in abundance in Modena yesterday.

More traditional boats belonging to the local maritime museum.

On special occasions promoted by the museum the boats are rigged out with colourful sails.

We are spending our final night in Italy all alone again in a paid sosta just a couple of hundred metres from the beach.  There is no hook up but it’s just €7 a night to stay here.

Close by is this memorial to Marco Pantani, one of the few cyclists to ever win both the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia in the same year (1998).  Pantani lived in Cesenatico.  He died in 2004 aged just 34.

Despite having been able to heat the van for the last couple of nights using electric hook up we have already burned through one of our 11kg gas bottles.  So we made a tactical decision to top that up while we are in Italy where LPG is so plentiful and cheap.  I took the opportunity to check the tyre pressures too while I was about it.  All still bang on 80 PSI.

The only real issue we have had is an ongoing problem with one of the rear axle air suspension bags.  I had the van in with Pullingers, who did the original fitting, a couple of times before we came away but we still have a very slow leak.  It’s no biggy really.  I just have to remember to pump it up every morning before we hit the road and top it up occasionally while we are travelling.

We are less than 2 hours’ drive now from Ancona where we embark on the ferry for our 8pm sailing tomorrow evening.  We’ve checked in online and have our etickets but we need to prep the van before we get there and pack our overnight bags for the 21 hour trip.  There will be no power in the van so we need to make sure that there is nothing in the fridge which is likely to perish while we are all at sea.  I also have no idea whether we will have wifi while we are on the boat so it may well be a couple of days before I can get the next update online.

20 February 2025 - All Aboard the Superfast XI