Fellini's city — where the Adriatic summer meets a perfectly preserved Roman and Renaissance old town, and piadina romagnola is the street food of choice
Rimini is the largest seaside resort on the Adriatic, with 15km of sandy beaches and a summer nightlife scene that draws millions of Italians — but it also has a medieval and Roman historical centre of remarkable depth. Federico Fellini was born here (1920) and the city's culture is inseparable from his sensibility: pleasure, nostalgia, spectacle, and a certain theatricality. The piadina romagnola — a flat unleavened griddle bread filled with squacquerone cheese, prosciutto crudo, or arugula — was born on the Romagna coast and is the region's most beloved street food.
Rimini was the Roman Ariminum (268 BCE), one of Rome's most important Adriatic cities — the Arch of Augustus (27 BCE), the Tiberius Bridge (14–21 CE), and the Malatesta Temple are among Italy's finest Roman and early Renaissance monuments. The Malatesta Temple (Tempio Malatestiano, designed by Alberti c.1450–1461) is one of the earliest Renaissance buildings in Italy, commissioned by Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta and scandalously dedicated to himself and his mistress rather than to God — earning the condemnation of Pope Pius II, who publicly burned Sigismondo's effigy in Rome.