Day 9 - Sunday 3 July
Instead of heading straight to the circuit after breakfast, Ursa and I rode to Coriano, bouncing along country lanes definitely not surfaced by the Luxembourgeois - more Le Marche or Surrey County Council standard!
Coriano is home to the Marco Simoncelli museum & memorial. The small museum contained wonderful arty photos of Simoncelli, both close up and in action, as well as artifacts from throughout his career (including mini-moto kit held together with gaffer tape). I couldn't help but contrast the dignity in the pictures of Marco, with the immature gurning of a certain Mr Iannone in his social media feed, to which I was subjected by the presence of Ursa's smartphone...
Then to the circuit. As WDW activities tend to finish on the Sunday lunchtime, it was a lot quieter: no queue. At the International Village tent where Desmo Owners Clubs have space, we arrived in turn for the presentation for the club competition prizes. Ursa & I being the only other UKMOCers in the tent at the time (and despite not having taken part in the events), Slob very generously invited us to join him as Scott Redding presented the prizes: see
http://www.ukmonster.co.uk/monster/s...ad.php?t=53316 Even better for Ursa, the prize included a little model Iannone race bike each!
While Ursa wanted to check out the shopping bargains, I wanted to check out the project 1312 2017 bike sneak preview. A 40 minute wait (under shade and with fans), cameraphone handed in (not that that had prevented spy shots appearing on MCN's website the previous day), and into the big white box. Surrounded on 3 sides by massive screens showing some very Americanised images of cities and roads, with an American accented voiceover with even more marketing waffle/lifestyle BS than I recall from the Scrambler preview 2 years ago, the bike was finally unveiled. A sports bike for the road. Token red trellis frame, under white Panigalesque fairing. We were allowed to sit on it, with warnings that it was just a mock up not a production version (presumably the mirrors and indicators were made of a weaker grade of cheese than road bike ones).
Having seen what we wanted to see at Misano, now time to hit the beach. To say the beaches at Cattolica are regimented is an understatement. The spiaggia is one area where the Italians out-German the Germans in organisation. (Possibly very deliberately, to avoid the stereotypical towel reservation of sunlounger tactics). We first had to purchase a ticket from the hotel, with boxes ticked to say we wanted 2 loungers and a parasol. This ticket was presented to the man at the beach office/shower building for the appropriate numbered beaches used by our hotel, where he checked a board to see which loungers & parasols had not yet been taken, and we were walked to our allocated spot. A couple of hours of paddling in the warm sea, reading, lounging and watching the Italians followed. Spotless loos, enough bins for rubbish - I can kind of see the point in the Italian way in a crowded resort (though I do still prefer West Wittering!)
Ursa was starting to get antsy about logistics for the return journey to England so we showered & headed to Tavullia so her bike could be loaded into the van. Huge thanks are due to BigOz for loading, and for riding his own bike up to Malpensa the next day as space in the van had been taken by 100HP Andrea's bike which had died on the way down. The Tavullia boys all getting a bit hot and stressy (missing persons, endless packing and unpacking) Ursa and I retreated to Cattolica for pizza and prosecco.