Day 14 - Walking in Riccione

Last night was the pool party.  It was within minutes of being moved indoors due to rain, but miraculously it stopped.  Plastic was brought out to keep the tables dry.  It was good that it stopped, the wait staff puts a lot of effort in to this.

 

Our center piece with candle light.

 

At the last party, we had the dancer and fire guy from Rio to entertain between courses.  They were not here last night.  The was more audience participation in drinking and dancing than the previous week.  This man was at the table that was ordering large glasses of gin on ice.

 

Now he and many other people are headed into the pool.  Several people ended up in the pool fully clothed.  This one planned ahead.

 

Today we took a long walk up the beach.  We passed by this church.

 

This is a pretty cool painting at the back of the church.  They had a key as to who each person in the painting was, but it was all in Italian.  There look to be a lot of saints there.

A very pretty Mary standing on a korbel.

 

This is something I have not seen before.  Up until today, all the Catholic churches we have visited were still using candles.  These are electric.  You pull out a candle and set it on the plug and it lights up.  It's just not the same.

 

As we continued our walk, we went by the Grand Hotel.  That's the one that has been under renovation for several years.  The gates were open, so we walked in.  It's just an amazing building.  I hope they can bring it back.  On our way out we were confronted by an Italian woman glaring, shaking her finger at us, and saying "No" in a firm voice.  When is the last time someone shook their finger at you?

 

More beach bagnis.

 

On the way back, Jim spotted this plaque on a brick wall.

 

This was the villa of Mussolini.

 

The amount of war that has taken place almost everywhere you go in Europe is saddening.  Yesterday when we were on top of Panoramica we were reading a poster about the Gothic Line in WWII.  Over a million men were involved in the fighting around Rimini, and over a million rounds of ammunition were fired into the city.