We continued our tour of the Italian seaside today. Despite 
yesterday’s warnings from the Ravenna tourist bureau we had a very easy time making our way along the coast. Small local roads run the whole way along the beach and we didn’t have to revert to the busy and narrow Adriatica SS16 once. Most Italians go on holiday in August and particularly this week, so the whole area is heaving with people. The beaches are so full we can smell the coconut sun cream just cycling along the road. If the sun worshippers aren’t on the beach then they’re out eating granita, tanning on the beach or shopping and in some way this mass of people made our job of cycling even easier. Everyone on vacation seemed to fill the roads with their bikes, going to the beach or to get groceries, and pedestrians were dashing out to cross the street all over the place. Car drivers seemed quite resigned to sharing the roads with plenty of other people, often waiting patiently behind us for quite some time before passing. The day was fairly hot but luckily the roads through the towns tended to be shaded with trees, so all in all we enjoyed our trip through the ocean towns like Rimini a lot more than we had expected. The campground we ended up staying in wasn’t exactly beautiful. The plots have definitely seen better days and people are crowded in, but it is right on the beach so we took advantage of our prime location to go for a late evening wade in the Adriatic sea, which is warm like bath water. No wonder the Italians are so keen to come here for a week of swimming.