Decision to Visit the Beach
We recently traveled to Italy with our 6-month-old and toddler and rented a car to drive to San Marino (you can read our guide to San Marino with a toddler here). On route back to Rome took us through the popular seaside towns of Rimini and Riccione. Even though it was February, the weather was mild and our toddler loves nothing more than playing in sand with his matchbox cars, so we decided to stop at a beach to let the kids play. I Googled beaches around Rimini and immediately came across numerous glowing reports, so we were excited to make a stop.
Which Beach?
We had a hard time finding a recommendation for a specific beach in the Rimini/Riccione area and eventually figured out that’s because there’s not really a bunch of different beaches but rather a couple very long beaches that have been divided into numbered sections called “bagni”. We decided to just drive along the beachfront in Riccione and just stop wherever we found good parking.
Parking
There’s a road that runs parallel to the beach in Riccione (Viale Milano initially and then eventually turned into Via Torino), so we drove along it looking for parking. We quickly found both street parking and some parking lots, all of which were mostly empty and free, at least in February. It apparently gets incredibly packed in the summer from photos I’ve looked at, so parking may be a real hassle at that time. We ended up parking along the street right on the beach near the Riccione Beach Arena.
The Beach
Our initial impression of the beach wasn’t great. The buildings along the beach were unappealing and neither the sand or water were anything special e.g. not really fine sand, white sand, turquoise water etc. If that was the only thing, I’d say don’t put it on your bucket list but that it would also be a fine place to stop to let your children play. However, what really turned us off was the amount of dog poop and trash on the beach! There were piles of poop and glass bottles (and plenty of other trash) everywhere. This was not only unsightly but potentially hazardous with a toddler and baby. Since we’d made the effort to stop and our toddler was desperate to play in the sand, we decided to let them play for a little bit with close supervision. We ended up staying for about 30 minutes and the kids had a good time, but it’s definitely not a place we’d return to. Because it’s such a popular summer destination, I’m guessing they clean up the beaches (at least the dog poop!) but from the photos I’ve seen they become insanely crowded so I’d think trash is still an issue and the vibe is very beach club, so not necessarily family friendly.
Grim looking waterfront and random trash, including lots of glass bottles, all over the beach in Riccione
So much dog poop on the beach in Riccione!
More glass bottles, including broken glass, on the beach
Some areas of the beach are rocky and some are sandy
Our toddler still had fun playing with his cars in the sand, but we wouldn’t return because of all the poop and trash
In Summary
The pros and cons of visiting the beach in Riccione in our opinion.
Pros
An extremely long stretch of beach basically running from Rimini to Riccione, so plenty of options to choose from
Free parking, at least when we visited in the winter
Shallow entry into the water so nice calm areas for kiddos to swim during the summer
Cons
Buildings along the waterfront had no character and were really quite grim and a lot of the benches along the beach had graffiti. Both detracted from the look and feel of the beach.
Lots of dog poop and trash, including broken glass, all over the beach
The beach looks very crowded in the summer with back to back chairs and and umbrellas for rent and numerous beach clubs so vibe is not necessarily family friendly
Have you visiting the beach in Riccione? If so, we and our readers would love to hear about it, especially if you had a different experience or visited in the summer and can share what that was like! Leave us a comment!