Giornale Adriatico-Mediterraneo I: Pesaro

Arnaldo Pomadoro’s “Sfera Grande” (photograph: Hallie Cohen)

At night jasmine makes the air sweet in Pesaro. It's a timeless resort on the Adriatic where you can see down the waterfront by way of a neon lit carousel. There’s no boardwalk with ski ball or bumper cars like on the Jersey shore or Long Beach. But you’ll pass a bar with a stray wooden horse out in front and a game parlor which faces onto long lines of umbrellas, beach chairs and cabanas, in front of hotels with names like “Sporting”and “Flying," all silent and still at the end of the day. If you're staying at the 70’s style Hotel Excelsior and walk along Lungomare Nazario Sauro which faces the sea you will come to Arnaldo Pomodoro’s "Sfera Grande," sitting above an infinity edge pool at the center of Pesaro’s Piazzale della Liberta. In stylistic contrast the neighboring Il villino Ruggeri, a mini art nouveau palace, hearkens back to a more aristocratic age. Pomodoro’s sphere tips its hat to metaphysics by revealing its own inner workings through chinks in its surface armor. So it’s nothing like the unselfconscious resort, whose denizens seem to have nothing to hide as they open their arms to visitors. The composer Rossini hailed from Pesaro and Anna Maria Alberghetti was born there. Pesaro also has its own battlement the Rocca Constanza, built by Constanza Sforza, of the famed family, in 1474. If you're looking for a moment of spiritual repose step into the Romanesque Santuaria della Madonna delle Grazi, or Pesaro’s 16th century Sinagoga on the via della Scuole. You probably haven’t heard of the poet Odoardo Giantsanti aka Pasqualon who's immortalized with his dog, accordion, cane and top hat in a metal sculpture at the Piazzale Matteotti or someone named Lino Micciche (l932-2004), “fondatore della Mostra Internationale de Nuovo Cinema in Pesaro." The Hotel Des Bains with its maroon canopy and sphinxes advertises "Congressi-Ristorante." You may attend its neocolonial bar after you finish your seafood dinner at the L’Angolo di Mario, a popular local restaurant that looks right out at the sea. Finish your evening off with a gelato at Alice il Gelato delle MERAVIGLIE, which lives up to its name.