At the beach, Italian style

July has been a heatwave month in Italy so along with pretty much everyone else, I decided to spend some days at the beach.  This is where I ended up

I thought it looked okay until I got down there, had a swim, and then discovered it was the dog beach.  A little further south, things were a bit better

 

There were lots of places where you could rent an umbrella and a sunbed

 

and be looked after by the 'bagnino' (life guard) when he was around

 but most people headed for the free beach

 or the rocks

 

I've got to say, the whole 'private' beach thing is quite repugnant to me

 

but then again, so is the concept of 'booking' your own super sized section of the free beach with your super sized beach towel before anyone else gets down there

 

With no surf and barely ever a ripple across the water, there is plenty of scope for swimming except that no one does.  At the most, they get wet up to the knees

or they wander up and down along the water's edge

 

or they just sit about reading the paper

Which is not to say the beach is boring.  There are all kinds of shopping opportunities on an Italian beach.  You can get fun stuff for the kids

 

You can get your hair braided African style by real Africans

 

You can get yourself a brand new frock or two

 

some new shoes or perhaps a scarf

 

even a tablecloth if that's what you really need

And once the day is over, the night market starts

where you can get all sorts of interesting trinkets including these strangely anachronistic critters

If that's not enough, you can always go along to one of the many exciting 'feste' in the area such as this one, now in its tenth year

or this one (literally, the Pig Party) now in its 11th year

or you could just do what I did and watch the last few pack up their bits and pieces

 and wait for the sun to go down

the moon to come up

and for Hercules to come back tomorrow to clean up the mess the beach lovers left behind