After Bologna we made our way to the Adriatic Sea, to spend four days in a place called Cervia-Milano Marittima.

To get there we took a direct train from Bologna that took about 1.5 hours. We then walked to the hotel from the train station for about 30 minutes.

We should have taken the bus from the train station but the bus takes 19 minutes and the walk is 30. Not that big of a difference but walking with our bags on uneven sidewalks of an old town was…not ideal.

The Adriatic Sea is the “arm” of the Mediterranean Sea. On one side, you have Italy, on another side there are Croatia, Montenegro, Albania and Greece to the south. I think Bosnia has sea access, too?

Our days on the Adriatic Sea were largely spent swimming and eating. Cervia is a tiny, touristy town with pretty much just hotels, beaches, shops that sell over-priced swimsuits and flip flops, and restaurants. The town sits in this huge green space, a nature reserve, with Maritime pines and Italian Stone pines dominating.

This time we stayed in a hotel and not an apartment. The hotel room was painfully small but had a balcony. No washing machine so I did sink laundry which was fine since we wore swim suits most of the time. And, as I mentioned, tons of beach time.

The beach was a fee-based beach and it had a cafe, a playground, rinsing showers, bathrooms. Floater toys for the customers. The kids rotated from the playground to swimming to eating to resting to playground again.

The day we arrived, day ZERO as I call it, the Adriatic was quite rough, with waves and wind. We got in anyway.

The day after, day 1, first FULL day, still relatively rough waves but no longer a surprise.

On our second day:

And our last FULL day on the Adriatic:

Having this time before boarding our plane back home (from Venice) and after the hubbub of Bologna and Florence was good. It was boring at times but I could read, and think, and journal.

Street food

Cervia is part of Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and one of the signature street food dishes is called “piadina.” Essentially, it’s a thick tortilla with all kinds of stuffing. Could be seafood, could be prosciutto, could be vegetables. Always with local cheese. I had La Classica: cheese, prosciutto, arugula. Very good and very filling!

After our days on the Adriatic came to an end, we took a train back to Venice. Stayed overnight in Venice and flew out to the US the next day.

I booked our overnight hotel right across the train station to which we arrived from Cervia, and right next to the airport bus stop. It was perfect.

We arrived to Venice at 3pm and still could go out to lunch and go to the park afterwards to move around before a 9 hours and 40 minute flight the next day.

I am finishing this post from my own porch in New Jersey. I was up at 3:30am because of jet lag.

In my next post I want to reflect on this trip overall, as well as kids’ behavior, my mental health, best memories, and any regrets or “would do differently next time” and items I bought on this trip. Sort of a trip postmortem.