☰Day Trips

The flat, well-connected Adriatic coast makes day trips easy from Bellaria. Rimini is the obvious first choice — twenty minutes by train or bus, it offers Roman ruins, a Malatesta Renaissance church, Fellini connections, and the full spectacle of the Riviera's biggest beach party. Cesenatico, 15 kilometres north, is a more refined version of the same coast: a canal port designed by Leonardo da Vinci, a floating museum of traditional Adriatic fishing boats, and slightly better restaurants. Ravenna is an hour inland and a complete change of register — the Byzantine mosaics in its churches and mausolea are among the finest in the world, and the city is quiet and undervisited relative to what it contains. San Marino, the tiny independent republic perched on a rocky crag 45 minutes west, is touristy but genuinely peculiar — a medieval fortified state that has maintained its independence since the ninth century, with spectacular views down to the coast.