A room in an hour
You don’t get off the ferry in Ancona. It spits you out.
Six in the morning, engine noise, an announcement in two languages, neon light on the car deck telling you how you look. A few hours of sleep, the rest half awake between the ship’s diesel and a child who at some point had something important to announce. Unshowered for twenty-four hours. Salt on my face, salt in my hair, probably salt in my jacket too.
And then, around seven, the first thing you see when the ramp opens: an industrial port. Ancona has a beautiful side, but at seven in the morning it doesn’t show it from the ramp. From the ramp it shows you containers, cranes, truck lanes, customs booths and a flow of traffic in which a motorcycle with two people and luggage is the weakest element.
The first decision of the day was therefore also the only right one: out.
Don’t look for coffee in the port. Not “a quick look at the old town.” Out of the beast, onto the expressway that runs north there parallel to the beach, out of the concrete corridor, until there was water on the right and nothing on the left trying to sell you something. For two days we had seen this sea from the other side. Now it lay to our right.
The ferry to Italy had been Lisa’s idea. The beach was mine. Near Fano - a good forty kilometers, a few stretches through towns in between - I looked for an exit, any exit, and rode down to the water. We stopped at the beach, and I drank an energy drink.
And then I saw the hotel. In my memory, a concrete bunker that had seen better days. In the photo it doesn’t look that bad at all. Then again, right on the beach: out the entrance, and less than ten meters later, sand. “Oh, there’s a hotel, I’ll go in.”
It was a little before eight. Check-in is at 3 p.m. Worldwide.
I went in anyway. Two motorcyclists in full gear, sweaty, salt-encrusted, with the expression of people who had spent a night on a ferry deck. I asked. The man at the reception desk looked at us for about two seconds. He spoke no English, I spoke no Italian. Somehow it was still clear what he meant: in an hour we could have a room.
No surcharge. No early check-in fee. No raised eyebrow. He had decided that two people who look like that need a bath, and that a room that’s empty in the morning doesn’t have to stay empty until 3 p.m.
An hour later we had the room. Inside, the place was nice and modern. The shower was the best of my life. Though after a night on an open deck and on a floor, after the sweating in Croatia and the salt air, every shower is the best in the world.
Then: power nap. Two hours, shutters down, fan on, the sea as background noise.
In the afternoon, the beach. It was almost empty, I’d guess ten percent full. Calm, after so many kilometers and a night like that.
We did nothing. For five hours. No agenda, no sightseeing, no photo of a church. Stood in the water, got back out, lay around, talked, didn’t talk, and at some point the sun went down.
That was the day a ride turned into a vacation.
Day 5 in numbers
| Item | Value |
|---|---|
| Distance | 42 km |
| Start | Ferry port of Ancona |
| Destination | Beach hotel near Fano |
| Passes and elevation | none, coastal plain at sea level |
| Countries | Italy |
| Overnight | Hotel near Fano, room arranged on the spot |