To Rimini and back
Published by
Duncan in
At Il Melo • 11/04/2010 21:52:07
Well, the weather has finally broken with a vengeance and we drive Chris to Rimini to fly home. Intermittently heavy rain both ways but not too much traffic. The stretch of autostrada from Civitanova to Ancona is a good 40km and is roadworks the whole way with an 80kph limit. It’s been like this for three years at least and, in all the time, I don’t recall seeing a single person actually working. Today is no different although I do at least see a couple of machines north of Ancona (just parked, not doing anything). At Rimini we are grateful for having the satnav as the road signs are dreadful; I have never seen an airport so badly signed (or rather so little signed). However when we arrive (and we nearly drive past it) it is astonishingly small for somewhere that is one of Italy’s biggest resorts. Quick hugs and then she’s off into the terminal lugging a bag of marking that must be way over Ryanair’s hand luggage limit – the benefit of online check in.
On the way back we stop off at Ikea to buy a few more bookcases and have Swedish meatballs for lunch. Driving through Penna San Giovanni, which admittedly is some three hundred metres higher than il Melo, there is sleet and the temperature falls to two degrees; that’s a drop of 21° since yesterday. Unbelievable!
In the evening we all watch Singing in the Rain on DVD. The kids have never seen it before and absolutely love it – especially Donald O’Connor’s “Make ‘em Laugh”. It’s definitely my favourite musical and possibly my Desert Island Film – I even have to surreptitiously wipe away a tear at the end. We’ve got a great collection of musicals in the DVD library now and watching them here, like playing board games, is the sort of thing we so rarely have time to do at home.