Autumn 2022

Pesaro - 28 October 2022

We had yet another peaceful night - either we’re getting better at choosing good places to park (we spend long enough!), or there is no nightlife at the end of October!

Me driving today - the ETA was for 3 hours, but only took 2-1/2 hours - bonus! Mainly on the Autostrada today towards Pesaro. Apart from over bridges and the supporting joints - much better road surface. Three lanes wide all the way, and quite a few tunnels - €11.60 for about 100km. It’s always a game on a motorway - you never seem to be able to go at the same speed, either the lorry in front is too slow, so you overtake, or you move lane as more people join the motorway. It’s great having the huge wide screen - you see all sorts of ‘bad’ driving in front of your eyes. We’re both more into driving the Italian way now, none of this waiting around for traffic to pass - just pull out in front! We now expect everyone to pull out in front of us at roundabouts - it’s just a given. Also, they do like to cross the lanes of traffic at a turn off, and go straight across in front of you! As for using indicators, it’s very rare, both on motorways and at roundabouts!

We’d filled up with €85 of diesel yesterday, today it was sadly watching the gauge go down! We did stop off on the motorway and serviced Dave - it’s free - and we never know for sure when we can do it again.

We’re in Pesaro (population c.95,000). It’s a popular seaside resort. Made famous by Gioacchino Rossini who was born here, and in whose honour a popular opera festival is held in August.

Just had to listen on YouTube to both his William Tell Overture, and The Barber of Seville…

Someone - and not me! - didn’t charge my bike battery (only his own!) so didn’t make it to Fano, along the coast! Went in Eco (lowest mode) and we cycled for nearly 11 miles around here.

There’s a huge shed, turns out it’s a boat shed for Cantiere Rossini - can refit some big ones in there!

It might be an over generalization, but I get the impression that the Adriatic coast might all be quite similar! Long sandy beaches, with huge boulder ‘breakwaters’ a little way out - all shallow - so very children friendly for the masses in the summer season. Then, a street behind - wall to wall hotels!

Also, again here there are cycle paths, which is great. We cycled into the old town. Very impressive big buildings, but in the Piazza del Popolo they were busy relaying the cobble stones, so not very good photos.

I liked the ornate outside of the house!

I think our timings today were engineered by my husband - let’s go at just after lunch he said - ha, all churches are closed and don’t open until 4pm! I didn’t get to see another mosaic floor!

Bonus of being in a big place means there were gelateria open! I had mango and biscotto, and Tintin had coffee and some pink job! €5.40. We always have piccolo - small size - not sure how you’d eat a large size one before it all melted off!

We’ve seen children before pulling suitcases behind them at kick out time, today it was trolleys with their school bags on them. What a good idea! Children are still growing and carry such heavy weights in rucksacks, usually slung over one shoulder - no wonder there are so many people with back issues.

We carried on cycling along the path until it was in too much shadow from the cliffs and was cold! It’s interesting they appear to drag the sand up the beach in big mounds, maybe to protect the buildings from the weather during the winter?