The story of Rimini is a story of the sea and its people. Since Roman times and ancient Ariminum, the city has always had in the port and in seafaring one of its beating hearts. We find a precious trace of this in the mosaics dating back to the 1st-2nd centuries A.D. housed in the City Museum, black and white tesserae composing designs of the port with the lighthouse, ships, and fish of the Adriatic.
The fishing industry is still important today, handing down the craft of fishing and supplying the city with excellent fresh fish every day: we recommend a trip to the San Giuliano fish market, one of the most important in the Adriatic, where the fish exchange takes place before dawn, or to the Mercato coperto in the centre to admire the many varieties displayed by skilful hands while strolling among the colourful stalls.
Staying in the centre, visit the Vecchia Pescheria (Old Fish Market) in piazza Cavour, an architectural marvel by Giovan Francesco Buonamici dating back to 1747, where you will find the long Istrian stone stalls on which the women used to sell the poveracce (clams). Next to the Pescheria is Piazzetta San Gregorio, known to the Rimini people as piazzetta delle poveracce (clams’ square), because this is where the daily sale of clams took place, and not only until 1969.
Cross Ponte di Tiberio and reach Borgo San Giuliano, the old fishermen’s village, and lose yourself in its narrow streets and colourful houses, where you will find bars, taverns and murals that tell of Fellini’s films, life and characters of these places.
Returning towards the sea, along the wharf is another iconic symbol of seafaring Rimini, a splendid 18th-century lighthouse that looks out over the horizon until it meets the Sposa del marinaio (Sailor’s Bride), right at the top of the palata, as it is called here the wharf, a bronze sculpture dedicated to sailors’ wives and their waits.
On the other side of the canal port, where it is always fascinating to watch the fishing boats leave or return, there is the Marina, which represents the contemporary: it is one of the most beautiful marinas in the Mediterranean, with 622 berths and a truly spectacular walkway by the sea.
San Giuliano offers other symbols of seaside Rimini. In addition to the fish auction, already mentioned, there is the Lungofiume degli artisti (Artists’ Promenade), the promenade where the houses overlooking the river are decorated with murals telling the stories of this place, together with words in dialect and works by Rimini painters, the Plotzcky sculpture, with the fisherman and the marlin, the Venus or scallop house, with its façades entirely covered in shells, and the new urban architecture that dialogues with the fishermen’s houses. There is also a small but very rich Maritime Museum in Viserbella.
Rimini, city of the sea, also means rarefied atmospheres that transform many spaces into places of the soul. So never miss the opportunity to stroll along the canal port, where in summer you wait for the sunset and in winter you immerse yourself in the poetry of foggy or windy days and rough seas.
