I'm back in Bologna after an adventurous weekend to the Adriatic Sea with Chiara. We left Saturday morning for an apartment near the shore in Riccione that Chiara rented from her friend. Here's the view from the balcony:
We'd got ourselves settled in and finished unpacking so we went to get lunch. We walked down the road to a small trattoria and got the best seafood I've ever had. Fresh crab (my favorite and absolutely the best crab I've ever had), shrimp, and squid. Plus collard greens and some other fish I couldn't identify.
After lunch we just chilled for a little while and threw in some laundry before heading to the beach. We hung the laundry out on the balcony to dry, as is normal in Italy. Chiara thought it was hilarious to take pictures of me doing this because it's something we don't normally do in the US, but I think I'll keep those to myself as they're not the most flattering, haha.
We walked down to the beach, and I was amazed. Everyone knows I'm not a huge beach person but it was amazing. The sand was so soft and fine, and it wasn't too hot at all. The weather couldn't have been better. The beach was covered with umbrellas and chairs. It's set up in such a way that every person who lives near the coast is assigned a certain section of umbrellas and chairs to use and you can just go pick one and sit. People were everywhere, tanning, playing in the water, and doing whatever people do at the beach! We joined in, although, as the palest one I think it was obvious that I wasn't from around these parts. =P
Don't worry, I applied sunscreen generously.
Chiara is a great photographer, but I think for our selfie, she might have just been a bit TOO generous with the flattering angle.... But it was a really good picture of us otherwise and I felt that I should use it.
But anyway, with this photo you can also see how all of the umbrellas were arranged on the beach behind us.
We decided to go for a stroll down the beach, with Chiara in full possession of my camera, so she wanted to take some more pictures of me with the sea.
She told me to jump. Surprisingly this only took two tries.
But look how perfect the weather is!!! Clear blue skies.
I took back possession of the camera and this is another picture of us, but this time with the ocean. As you can see, my selfies are a bit more modest =P
After this we walked along in the water for maybe a little less than an hour. I discovered I'm deeply afraid of dead crabs that float in the water or end up on the beach. Nope. I will have none of those near me, thank you. I think people noticed... After we came back to our spot we spent a few more minutes playing in the sand before we returned to the apartment.
We relaxed there for a couple of hours before it started to get dark and cool down. We decided to head out for dinner in the center area of Riccione. Imagine in all the movies by the ocean, where there's the boardwalk full of shops, people holding hands, everyone just strolling around and it just goes on and on and on down the street. Basically it's exactly like that. We walked straight on passing gelaterias, restaurants, arcades, and little touristy stores with the occasional break for a fountain. We probably walked for a half hour and couldn't see the end of this road. It just went on forever. Finally we settled on a place called Dante 9.2, as it was new and looked really nice. Chiara explained to me that piandine, flat bread (sort of like pita) filled with various ingredients, was a food common to the region of Emilia-Romagna and I had to try it. I couldn't say no. When we looked at the menu, they all looked fantastic. After much struggle, I settled on a cassoni, which is a piadina closed on both ends, with tomatoes, mozzarella, and (my favorite!) porcini mushrooms inside. It was amazing. So good. I wish I could email smells or tastes to share with everyone but it was really good. I got half way through eating this and I decided that I couldn't try just this piadina considering that there was another one on the menu that sounded delicious and was named after one of my favorite characters in The Divine Comedy. It was called Virgilio and it had honey, sheep cheese, and arugula inside. So I ordered it and saved the other half of the first one for lunch the next day.
When I leave Italy, I'm going to have some major withdrawals.
It was a great night with the best food (I may or may not have finished the Virgilio later that night...) so we were pretty tired out after that and walked back to go to bed.
Since this post is pretty long and it's late, I'll post our Sunday adventures on Wednesday probably, after I return from my grand adventure to Florence tomorrow and Tuesday. And of course I will then include my adventures in Florence! Wish me luck on my first truly solo backpacking adventure. I'll be staying in a hostel and everything so let's hope my Italian skills are good enough to get me by!
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