Congress Palace: what to see and tips

Rimini's Palazzo dei Congressi, the Palacongressi, is the city's large convention center, opened in 2011 in a park about 800 meters from the historic center, where the old fairgrounds used to be. It is worth a look even from the outside, for its contemporary architecture.

It was designed by Volkwin Marg of the Hamburg firm GMP: two buildings joined by a foyer, one under a large shell-shaped roof, 23 meters high, which houses the amphitheater, the other with the main hall lit by pyramid-shaped glass skylights. In all, 39 rooms and up to 9,000 seats.

At the entrance stands the Pearl: a white granite sphere more than two meters across and weighing 16 tons, which turns on a film of water with a gentle push of the hand. The rooms are named after Rimini's monuments, and the park's paths follow the old course of the Ausa stream to the center and the sea.