This section features one of Italy’s several roads to Rome – the Via Romea, the long haul down the Adriatic shore by which pilgrims from eastern and central Europe travelled to the Eternal City. In the north, Venice and Ravenna always attracted pilgrims of their own but the rest of the coast was poor and backward, its broad ribbons of soft sand useless and a mere hindrance to fishermen. Then the tour operators discovered it and struck gold. A town where the word ‘hotel’ was unknown gave the language a new verb: riminizzare, to make like Rimini, to ravage with concrete, asphalt and high-rise buildings. From the Po Delta to the mountains of the Abruzzo the place-names now read like one big fat holiday brochure. They call it the Grande Spiaggia d’Europa: Europe’s Grand Plage.

The best places to visit, on the autostrada between Rimini and Pescara, are clear of coastal congestion. For long stretches it is not even within sight of the sea. Other sights, of historical importance, are found on the coastal roads hugging the shore, heavily trafficked at the northern end and passing through main streets and along promenades of resorts which are full of carefree holidaymakers in July and August. It would take years to sample these hundreds of resorts. You make your own discoveries and perhaps find little to choose between them, except in size. Sandy beaches abound in the north, turning to shingle and rock as you move south, though Pescara’s 8-km beach is sandy. Some resorts are new and their sub-tropical plantations struggle to establish themselves. Most are 30 to 40 years old, unashamedly ‘family’ with carefully-raked sands, striped umbrellas, beach beds and bathing huts lined up with military precision and the squares of hotels geometrically laid out. It’s made clear which places offer a little more than sun, sea and sand.

The remaining sights are mainly a little inland, places of special interest. Our coverage of the area is completed by The Po Plain, Green Hills of Umbria and Eastern Appenines – focussing on the Romagna, Marche and Abruzzo hinterland.

In the north is the pianura padana or Po plain, flat and fen-like, the sight lines limited by thick woodlands – see also The Northern Appenines. 

South of Rimini the Apennines begin to close in. Around Pescara the high hills come down to within a stone’s-throw of the coast.

TRANSPORT

Airports: Venice is international, Ancona part of the domestic network. Rimini and Pescara are served primarily by summer charter flights from all parts of Europe.

The main railway, Venice-Pescara, takes a wide sweep around the Po delta but farther south it is almost in the sea – a curse to resort planners, whose clients have to cross it to get to the beach. There are fast trains on this route and also painfully slow ones which stop every five minutes at a tiny station exactly like the one you have just left. Railcars wriggle into the hills from Civitanova and Porto d’Ascoli.

The large resorts have express bus connections with each other and with main European cities. Ravenna, Rimini, Cattolica and Ancona are excellent centres for bus tours up and down the coast and across the peninsula to Florence and Rome.

By sea you can travel between Venice, Ravenna, Rimini and Ancona. Venice, Rimini, Ancona and pescara have ferry services to the Dalmatian coast. Ancona has a service to Albania.