Sirolo, unknown jewel of the tourist laden east coast

After Nathan and the McInerneys head for Rome and London, it's just the Heslops. It's our first week with just the four of us together since we arrived 3 weeks ago. We have one week until the next guests arrive that gets consumed by sleep ins, swimming by the pool, playing Uno, Shane doing a few more bike rides before his big Spain trip, the kids sneaking over to Helena and Danilo's house to eat lolls and watch Italian cartoons, and me trying half-heartedly to keep up the running without my lovely running compagnon, Tania...

On one of these languid days when the temperature clings to 40, I make it known that we should head to the beach for a day trip, mind you, this is at around 11am.  The last time I had one of these "why don't we be a bit more spontaneous, who cares if half the day has already gone' ideas, Sam was 6 weeks old, Charlie not yet two, and we headed off to the snow for the day, where Charlie turned a shade of grey/green Ive never seen and we lasted 20 minutes on Lake Mountain before a snow storm set in...Happy that time seems to have erased this event from Shane's memory, he diligently gets out his trusty iPad and starts researching beaches - East coast, west coast, travel time, etc needing to read all the reviews and find out where the best beaches are before we set off, and in spite of my heckling, I'm bloody glad he did, because Sirolo and Numana were FANTASTIC!!!

At Numana Beach

A 2.5 hour car trip (yes I drove!), and we arrive at Numana, about 10 minutes from busy, touristy Ancona (you might know of nearby Rimini, Ricchione, Cattolica that are packed during the summer with Italians and Germans)...we seem to have landed on the family beach, because there are kids playing, women with cellulite and not a brazilian bikini bottom anywhere. We pay our obligatory 16 euro (pretty cheap) for our two sun beds and umbrella near the water and make for the 'waves'!! 

In Australia I've lasted about 2 hours maximum at the beach, but with the sun beds, umbrella, coronas that you could order from the bar 20 metros away we lasted an almighty 4 - personal best!!

UNO!

How good is pizza and beer on the beach?

 After such a relaxing time at the beach we drive to the next town, Sirolo, to see what it's like, and I'm so glad we did because it was beautiful. Shane is still raving about it being as beautiful, if not mores, than Positano...I've never been so I'll have to take his word for it, but it was absolutely stunning. No tourists, whitewashed buildings, a piazza with a view to die for and aperitifs at sunset.

 

Finally, somewhere that serves Bloody Marys, this really is a great town!!!