After some deliberation and the fact we had some time off, we decided to head away for a few days in July for Nigel’s birthday. After a few searches of Skyscanner.net for what was cheap on the dates we had and a bit of deliberation about destinations we hadn’t been to before we decided to head towards San Marino!
We managed to find flights to Frankfurt Hahn from Stansted for £9.99 each and then later that day Frankfurt to Perugia also for £9.99 each both flights with Ryanair. This meant that we had approximately 6 hours in Frankfurt. We also booked the same route back again with a stop back in Frankfurt for the same price and travelled on hand luggage. We booked car hire for 3 days from Perugia for just over £100 and airport parking through the Holiday Extras app and reserved some accommodation through Booking.com. The plan was to drive from Perugia to San Marino along the coast taking in some of the sights on the way. Off we set at silly o’clock for our 7.30 am flight which was luckily on time.
We arrived at Frankfurt Hahn airport after quite a cramped flight just after 10am local time and made our way outside to find the transfer bus which would take us to Frankfurt town centre. After I booked (but luckily before we got there!) I realised I made a bit of a boo-boo with the Frankfurt airports. The first part of our trip took us to Frankfurt Hahn but the rest of our flights were from the main Frankfurt airport. This meant we had to get a transfer bus from Hahn into Frankfurt which took just under 2 hours. This cost 10 euros each and we had a little wait until 11am before we headed off on the bus. We arrived into Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof at 12.45 and had a few hours to kill before we needed to head to the airport again to get our 18.25 flight to Perugia.
When arriving at the train station there were lockers in which you could store luggage which was handy and we head off in the heat to have a look around. We had never been to Frankfurt before and didn’t know what to expect but were surprised at how commercial it was; both of us were expecting more traditional style buildings but it was clear it was a commerce centre. We did manage to stop for ice cream, a beer and of course we had to have a Frankfurter in Frankfurt before catching the train to the airport.
The train to the airport was quite pain-free although expensive (we would learn why on our return trip!). It took 15 minutes on the train to get to the airport; a vast improvement on the 1hr 45 from Frankfurt Hahn and we got there in enough time to chill before our flight. The flight to St Frances of Assisi Airport in Perugia took an hour and a half and we arrived just after 8pm.
We were pretty tired by now and ended up joining a queue for collecting the hire car before driving the short distance to our hotel. We arrived at the Perugia Park Hotel at 21.15; checked in, had a beer and chilled out!! The hotel was quite nice and had a spa for £60 for the night with breakfast.
The next morning we had breakfast and checked out the pool and facilities. After being shouted out by a lady by the pool and not really understanding why I realised that ladies with long hair have to wear a hair cap which I discovered after seeing a sign….oops!. We checked out and headed off on our road trip towards San Marino leaving at 11am. We decided to head along to Ancona and drive along the coast and it was a pretty drive. The hire car was an Alpha Romeo which was a very nice car to drive.
Heading towards Ancona there were kilometres and kilometres of roadworks which meant at some points we were crossing to the opposite side of the road going in tunnels the opposite direction. It was a little disconcerting but the roads weren’t busy and we arrived in Ancona, knowing nothing about it! The drive there took 1hr 20 and we discovered on arrival that it is a port and there were several cruise ships docked there. It was a pretty little place but we decided there wasn’t too much to see there and decided to move on.
We drove up the coast a little further for another hour and a half and arrived at Senigallia. This was a bustling beach resort and was obviously a popular resort for the Italians. There was a lovely beach here and we decided to go for a dip in the Adriatic!
Carol & Nigel xx
July 2018
