Rimini

On our first day of travel, we arrived in Rimini, Italy. Rimini was home to Federico Fellini. A block or so from our hotel we were able to see the house where he grew up. Throughout Rimini, we came across things relating to him; there were paintings relating to his films, we saw where he attended high school and the cinema where he saw his first film. Fellini was a more recent in the history of Rimini; we saw historical aspects from the Roman times and Medieval times.

We came across the old city walls, of which you could see both the Roman wall and the medieval wall (you could tell the difference based on the brick sizes). We came across an old Roman house which is called the House of the Surgeon. It was home to a surgeon they believe as they found surgical tools in the ruins. The floors of the home were mosaic and remained fairly intact. Built over this house was a church, and there was a cemetery directly above the house so not only are you able to see the mosaic floors but there are also multiple skeletons in the mix. We then moved on to the harbor (which in my opinion looks more like a river) which was constructed in the Roman times as well under the ruling of Augustus (although all the constructions were finished under Tiberius). This harbor was a way for the Romans to transport bricks from the area back to Rome; as they say all roads lead to Rome (in this case even the waterways).

We then went to see a part of Rimini that used to not really be a part of the city but now is. I do not recall the exact name for the area but it is where the fishermen used to live as well as the, as our tour guide put it, the people running from the law lived. In other words, it was not a very wealthy or nice part of town and eventually was basically abandoned. Fairly recently though, it has been restored and dolled up and is now one of the nicest parts of Rimini with some of the more expensive property values. While walking through this area we saw brightly colored houses, tiles that labeled the original house owner’s name and their nickname, many large wooden doors and various small paintings from a festival that occurs each year where artists are invited to paint a piece on a certain topic. This part of Rimini reminded me a lot of home. There is a part of Baltimore called Federal Hill which is downtown and is not part of a very nice part of town. In about the 1980s or ‘90s to fix up the area, the city sold a lot of these houses for $1.00 on the terms that the owners would fix them up and maintain them to help create a nicer neighborhood. This plan worked out and now Federal Hill is one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city, just like this part of Rimini is now one of the nicest areas. The fact that I was reminded of my home while walking through a completely new city was a nice surprise.

At the end of our day we walked through the Malatesta Temple. This temple was never completely finished. Honestly I was not very impressed with the Temple from the outside; there was nothing incredibly special about the marble and while the story may have been very romantic, there was nothing very special about it. Once we were inside, again at first glance I was not very impressed. But once our guide started talking about each chapel and the marble designs I started to appreciate the whole Temple a lot more.

Of course, the food was delicious, you have to be careful with these five course meals though (we may all look like balloons at the end of the trip if we’re not careful!). When we first entered Rimini I was not completely sure about it; it looked sort of run down and just not very inviting. After walking through it though, it was a pleasurable one day stay. It was interesting to get to see what we had read about in class, and it helped that the weather was very nice too! I am really looking forward to the coming days and the rest of travel!