{"id":3488,"date":"2014-08-19T19:00:24","date_gmt":"2014-08-19T17:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?p=3488"},"modified":"2016-07-10T23:03:28","modified_gmt":"2016-07-10T21:03:28","slug":"discovering-emilia-romagna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/discovering-emilia-romagna\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovering the other half of Emilia Romagna"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rick<\/a>
The rough life of a travel blogger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Earlier this year, I received a phone call from a fellow blogger, Alessandra from 21grammy<\/a>, inviting me to join her on a blog tour of her region.\u00a0 She was working with a local tourism cooperative<\/a> to bring writers from all over the world to their little corner of Italy; a charming beach town on the Adriatic Coast, she assured me.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t take a lot of arm-twisting to get me onboard, although I wasn\u2019t entirely certain of what I was agreeing to at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you\u2019ll come, then?\u201d she asked me.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure.\u00a0 Where is it exactly?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCesenatico.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat.\u00a0 Where the hell is that?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Back in 2008, I lived in Bologna for a short while.\u00a0 For those who haven\u2019t visited \u201cla dotta,\u201d (\u201cthe learned one,\u201d so-called for its university, the oldest in Europe), \u201cla grassa\u201d (\u201cthe fat one,\u201d so-called for its heavy cuisine), or \u201cla rossa,\u201d (\u201cthe red one,\u201d so-called for its red-tile roofs or communist leanings, take your pick), it\u2019s worth adding to your next visit to northern Italy.\u00a0 While living there, I also spent a good bit of time in Parma where a few of my friends were studying music.\u00a0 So this was the Emilia-Romagna that I knew\u2014the Emilia half\u2014and probably the side that most foreigners know (if they know it at all).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

However, after my weekend in Cesenatico<\/a>, I feel like I\u2019ve discovered the proverbial \u201cundiscovered Italy.\u201d\u00a0 The truth is, it\u2019s only \u201cundiscovered\u201d to Americans.\u00a0 Italians and Northern Europeans are quite familiar with this area. \u00a0This is the \u201cright side\u201d of the region (yes, a pun or two was intended there), otherwise known as Romagna.\u00a0 I really knew next to nothing about the area before my visit.\u00a0 It was the<\/em> pleasant surprise of my summer blog tour.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/a><\/p>\n

So what\u2019s so great about it?\u00a0 The short, philosophical answer is that it fits into my \u201csweet spot\u201d for being not too chaotic and yet not too sterilized.\u00a0 If you read my previous post about Ticino<\/a>, then you know that this area was just a bit too Swiss for me.\u00a0 And if you read my post about Agrigento<\/a>, well\u2026let\u2019s not get into that again.<\/p>\n

Cesenatico is a hub for sports enthusiast, and is also an ideal location for families.\u00a0 It\u2019s not as crowded or as expensive as other coastal destinations in Italy.\u00a0 Great hotels, pretty piazzas, just enough tourist sites to fill up a relaxed itinerary.\u00a0 Everything you\u2019d want in a vacation destination.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Furthermore, it\u2019s also probably the cleanest area that I\u2019ve ever visited in Italy, with a noticeable attention towards environmental sensitivity and sustainable tourism.\u00a0 Lots of bike paths, and the city government has even made some free bikes available for guests to use.\u00a0 This is a wonderful thing, because Cesenatico is a long, narrow town, and bikes are the easiest way to get around.\u00a0 Plenty of green spaces, too, and shady, tree-lined boulevards that run along the length of the coast.<\/p>\n

Plus\u2014perhaps above all\u2014Cesenatico has the sea (which also means great seafood).\u00a0 The beaches have soft sand which slopes down to a shallow sea floor, making it very swimmer friendly.\u00a0 The waves are small, but the seabreeze makes it perfect for windsurfing, kite-surfing, and paddleboards.\u00a0 The water quality is constantly monitored, which has helped this stretch of coastline gain the \u201cBlue Flag\u201d award for environmental protection.<\/p>\n

\"beach<\/a><\/p>\n

Along this lovely seashore there are over 120 beach clubs, bars, and restaurants.\u00a0 The beach club (stabilimento balneare<\/em> in Italian) is something that we don\u2019t really have much of in the U.S., especially in my home state of Florida.\u00a0 But I\u2019ve come to really embrace it.\u00a0 You pay a small fee, and for that you get your own little piece of waterfront real estate for the day, complete with beach chairs, umbrellas, and access to all the services. \u00a0Often there\u2019s a little caf\u00e9 if you want lunch, games for the kids, music, drinks, and watersports.\u00a0 For me, this is all a delightful economical convenience; I don\u2019t have to bring anything except my bathing suit and sunglasses.\u00a0 Italy Magazine recently published a lighthearted look<\/a> at this type of establishment if you want to know more.<\/p>\n

See? Food!<\/h2>\n

People visiting Italy are always amazed by the sheer bounty of magnificent food that is so ubiquitous throughout the country.\u00a0 Indeed it\u2019s one of the main reasons to tour this delicious landscape, from north to south.\u00a0 Really, once you get outside of the main tourist centers in Rome, Florence, and Venice and it\u2019s hard (but not impossible) to have a bad meal in Italy.<\/p>\n

Being from Florida, I\u2019m partial to seafood\u2014so the cuisine of Cesenatico appealed to me immediately.\u00a0 Only an hour after my arrival, my hosts at Hotel Lungomare<\/a> offered me a light lunch with cold beer and my weekend was off to a great start.<\/p>\n

\"seafood<\/a><\/p>\n

All along the canal which cuts through the center of town, there are typical trattorie<\/em> which feature fresh seafood prepared according to traditional fishermen\u2019s recipes.\u00a0 We ate at just such a place that weekend, simply called, \u201cLa Trattoria.\u201d\u00a0 The risotto al marinara was particularly delicious.\u00a0 Fish is also the star of two \u201csagre\u201d <\/em>during the year: there\u2019s \u201cAzzurro come il pesce\u201d in the spring, and \u201cIl Pesce fa festa\u201d in the fall.<\/p>\n

There are fancier places to eat, too.\u00a0 We enjoyed an extravagant aperitivo in the presidential suite of the Grand Hotel Da Vinci<\/a>, while sipping Campari cocktails and overlooking the sea.\u00a0 This hotel was particularly evocative for me, because it reminded me so much of the Art Deco hotels along Collins Avenue in South Miami Beach.\u00a0 Besides a great restaurant, Hotel Da Vinci also boasts an amazing spa and a newly redesigned pool area. Very luxurious, but still quite affordable in the shoulder seasons.<\/p>\n

\"spa<\/a><\/p>\n

Going Back<\/h2>\n

As you may have guessed, I really like this area.\u00a0 In fact, I like it so much, I\u2019m going back there in October, this time a little further south to Rimini.\u00a0 I\u2019ll have a lot more to say about this venture in a future post, but suffice to say that this upcoming trip will be focused on getting more directly involved with promoting tourism in Italy.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, if you want to know more about Romagna, check out Alessandra\u2019s website.\u00a0 She is a lifetime resident of the region, and a font of great information for anyone interested in visiting.\u00a0 She\u2019s Italian, of course, but writes her blog 21grammy<\/a> in English.<\/p>\n

\"cesena2\"<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re contemplating an upcoming vacation in Italy, do NOT overlook this area.\u00a0 Most Americans do, but the rest of the world is already onto this \u201cundiscovered\u201d location.\u00a0 You might not find a lot of museums filled with Renaissance masterpieces or towering ruins from ancient Rome.\u00a0 But you\u2019ll find all the other things that Italy is famous for: beautiful scenery, nice people, great food, and a relaxing pace of life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this year, I received a phone call from a fellow blogger, Alessandra from 21grammy, inviting me to join her on a blog tour of her region.\u00a0 She was working with a local tourism cooperative to bring writers from all over the world to their little corner of Italy; a charming beach town on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,211,169,9,66],"tags":[223,276,226,274,275],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3488"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}