A pink beach day

After a degustation at La Nonna Rosa (seafood option) last night, breakfast this morning was an unneeded event….just a bit of takeaway fruit.

We then went to the downtown area to wait for the information centre to open…packed with beach going items and flamingo hunting eyes!

The tourist train, waiting for its day to begin also…together with the park pigeons…

Drinking from the water fountain….

And sitting atop the centre park monument…sometimes you’re the statue and sometimes you’re the pigeon – this morning the pigeons were ruling the roost!

The information centre opened at 9am and we left after collecting a street map, none the wiser how to catch a bus to Poetto Beach and the flamingo reserve…other than it was an orange bus and left from over there (a wave if the hand for directions) …bearing in mind over there was the bus station with numerous bays to choose from and no mention of the bus colour!

We finally boarded a blue bus with Poetto on the front…which headed off in the general direction….on the way we spied a couple of flamingos flapping away in the salt pans, before arriving at the last stop having had three policemen board the bus just before arrival (with only us and one other man still on board!) Oh oh! what’s going on here?….and it was a ticket check…rather an overkill for three (paid up) passengers…

As we disembarked we found a beach lido, as a bathroom stop was needed, and had a coffee…there was a beach club in front with brollies and loungers or the free beach area to the side.

We decided to splash out €12 each and take a chair for the day.. dived in the Chrystal clear water with a wave rolling in!

Very pleasant for an hour or so, reading peacefully until the wind came up and the clouds rolled in…actually got a bit chilly, so we went back to the lido for another coffee (and restroom stop) around midday.

Then it was off in search of these infamous flamingos…we had to cross the main highway to the wetland area, which we couldn’t enter but got some great views of the pink salt pans (still no flamingoes)

We walked about a kilometre along the edge of the highway playing dogems with the highway traffic…as no pavement or barrier on roadside…

The salt pans were rather picturesque, however we gave up on the pink flamingo hunt…and headed back to our beach chairs…

The sun peeped through the clouds a bit and we had another swim in a sunny moment…then we felt raindrops…so packed up around 3ish and beelined once more for the lido cafe …this time for a beer, gin and a late lunch of salad. The rain shower was a 5 minute wonder, but we decided we were somewhat ready to make tracks for our hotel shower..

The rain had warmed up the afternoon, and an almost cold (hotel) shower was the wake up call we needed, before hitting the streets again for our evening outing!

There are hundreds of pink flamingos in the Indian souvenir shops around our area…may just have to be content with buying a €3 one to remind us of what we may have missed!

We found a snacks cafe and had a drink, only to be joined by two old guys…yes we are old, but they probably had 15-20 years on us…they scuttled their chairs to our table and we had no conversation as they spoke no English and we spoke no Italian…so they just kind of leered at us, it was a bit creepy. We very quickly sculled our drinks, paid our bill and left to find another venue!

Still full from our late lunch we both agreed a dessert and Irish coffee was the order of the evening!

Tiramisu for Jill and red berry cheesecake for Sue… perfect end to a pink beach day!

Just realised my travel buddy has crashed…so that’s me for the day!!