Every few years with some friends (everyone of us in our fifties, be warned) we visit Pesaro for the Rossini-festival which is held here in august. The operacomposer Rossini was born here of course. His grave in Paris at Père Lachaise is empty, because he was reburied in Florence, something which still saddens Pesaro, where one would have loved to rebury him a second time. The house where he was born is now a small, but charming museum. The old fashioned operatheatre is called Theatro Rossini. Pesaro is an Italian style beach resort, where every august then operafreaks mingle with the much larger Italian crowd of sunbathers. The town has a pleasant, but rather small old centre: piazza, main street, part of which is of course called Viale Rossini, and that’s it really. It also has an extensive and equally pleasant lungomare (called Viale Trieste), on or near which most of the hotels are situated. The first time we went here we stayed in Urbino, at fourty kilometers from Pesaro, in Hotel Bonconte, which was excellent, but which also made it necessary to drive from Pesaro to Urbino, late every night. The second time we stayed in Pesaro, in Hotel Savoy, which together with Hotel Vittoria is probably the hotel most frequented by foreign guests. We didn’t like Savoy at all. With three persons they gave us a double with an extra bed. Small, dark room. Expensive. I seem to remember a small and empty swimming pool on the roof. With empty I mean without water. We never tried Vittoria, because knowing Italy well, I presumed it to be one of those oldfashioned fourstar hotels which are very expensive, without the quality you would expect. That seems to be confirmed by former guests on this site. The next time by mere chance we wound up at Hotel Perticari, and we liked it a lot. We organised our stay be e-mail, and were answered in what I thought was a very sympathetic way. Very friendly personnel, although not much used to foreign guests. Simple, but large and well appointed rooms, with large balconies, a large swimming pool, where daily life seems to be very Italian. The hotel is on Via Zara, which is practically on the beach, but also a five minutes walk to the old centre. It is my guess (but a well informed one) that if you visit Pesaro for the opera, it is much better to stay at this sort of hotel, that caters almost exclusively for Italians, who won’t allow for bad service. The only problem might be that guests are supposed to take mezza-pensione (meaning one meal a day) and stay for a week. But even than a stay here is cheaper than at Vittoria, or Savoy, and a lot more agreable. Next august we will be going again, and we will certainly try Perticari first.