Car Rental Pesaro

The most significant relic of Renaissance Pésaro, however, is Giovanni Bellini's magnificent Coronation of the Virgin polyptych, housed in the art gallery of the Museo Civico (July & Aug Tues-Sun 5-11pm; Sept-June Tues-Wed 9.30am-12.30pm, Thurs-Sun 9.30am-12.30pm & 4-7pm; L5000/?2.18, or L8000/?4.13 including Casa di Rossini). Painted in the 1470s for a church now known as Madonna delle Grazie (in Via San Francesco), the altarpiece situates the coronation not in some starry heaven but in the countryside around Pésaro, dominated by the castle of Gradara. Portraits of saints flank the central scene, ranging from the hesitant St Lawrence to the dreamy St Anthony, and below are a Nativity and scenes from the saints' lives. Although none of the gallery's other paintings can compare with the Bellini, don't miss Marco Zoppo's pietà, in which the dead Christ's muscled sensuousness prompts speculation on the artist's necrophiliac tendencies. Renaissance Pésaro was famous for its ceramics, and the museum houses a fine collection - ranging from a Madonna and Child surrounded by pine cones, lemons and bilberries from the workshop of Andrea della Robbia, to plates decorated with an Arabian bandit. The most striking piece, however, stands above the entrance to the museum - a ferocious snake-haired Medusa by the local artist Ferruccio Mengaroni.

A block beyond the museum, the old and narrow Via Castelfidardo leads down to Pésaro's most attractive street, the porticoed Corso XI Settembre. If you want to do more than just browse in its shops, take a look inside the church of Sant'Agostino - the choir stalls are inlaid with landscapes, Renaissance cityscapes, and, displaying a wit to rival the studiolo in the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino, half-open cupboards and protruding stacks of books.

On Via Mazza, the continuation of Via Castelfidardo, is Pésaro's archeological museum in the Palazzo Almerici, the Museo Oliveriano (July & Aug Mon-Sat 4-7pm; rest of year Mon-Sat 9am-noon; free; you may need to apply at the adjacent library, tel 0721.33.344), with a small but unusual collection of local finds. Among the relics from the Iron Age necropolis at nearby Novilara are a child's tomb filled with miniature domestic utensils and a tomb slab carved with pear-shaped figures rowing a square-sailed boat into battle. Even more intriguing is the collection of ex-votives - breasts, feet, heads and even a dog - collected not from an early Catholic church but from a Roman sacred grove at San Veneranda (3km from Pésaro), consecrated in the second century BC. Pride of place, however, goes to a bronze statue of a Grecian youth, exquisite even though it's a facsimile of a Roman copy of a fifth-century-BC Greek original.

In the other direction, the tree-lined grid of stucco hotels and gleaming apartments marks Pésaro's long sandy beachfront, punctuated by a handful of Art Deco villas, including one on Piazzale della Libertà whose eaves are supported by white plaster lobsters. On the way, at Via Rossini 34, the Casa di Rossini (July & Aug daily 5-11pm; Sept-June Tues-Sun 9.30am-12.30pm & 4-7pm; L5000/?2.58) houses a modest shrine of memorabilia to the composer, who was born here in 1792. The Teatro Rossini on Piazza Lazzarini hosts an opera festival in his honour every August.