The Sands of Time

I think one’s expectations of a beach experience are set at a pretty young age. Growing up in Oregon, my childhood memories are of a rugged, storm-sculpted shoreline, frigid Pacific Ocean waves and weather that generally ranged from cloudy and rainy to partially cloudy. Summer meant you could leave the sweatshirt at home and go with a windbreaker.

In exchange for that not exactly resort-ready environment, one was treated to miles of untamed beaches where people were outnumbered by sea lions and seagulls, even at the height of summer. The sun that did crack through was filtered through the lattice of evergreens and pines that loomed on the cliffs above. My memories are of sitting on driftwood logs toasting marshmallows, or fishing for salmon and Dungeness crabs.

I can’t quite imagine what an Italian, at least one from the Adriatic coast, would make of that. One of my cousins married someone from Barcelona and they eventually wound up back in the Pacific Northwest for a time. I suspect the Oregon Coast must have been a strange sight for him as well. Where is the beach volleyball? Where do we order drinks?

Similarly, it took me a minute to warm to the Italian bagni experience. Rugged it is not. The first time my wife C & I went, neither of us understood the idea of renting lettini and an ombrello,, the technicolor chaise lounges and umbrellas that stretch out across a thin strip of sand like an endless candy display on a supermarket shelf. So we concluded that the Italian state in their generosity had set them out for public use and plunked ourselves down. When the proprietor of the club came to politely explain that those beds had been reserved but he would be happy to move us to others if we wished to rent them for the day, I thought my language skills were failing me. Confused, I paid the money, we sat on the lounges for a half an hour—still in our street clothes—until we got hot. Then went for a walk and left. Thank God I didn’t try to toast marshmallows.

I think it wasn’t until we went to one of the Adriatic beaches with an Italian friend that we actually started to understand what is for most Italians an activity inextricably linked to childhood, summer, and the eating of a clam. We reserved lettini and ombrellos in advance. We got there early enough in the morning to have a coffee at the bar along the boardwalk, sitting under the palm trees and watching the parade of women in boldly patterned caftans and big straw hats, or young boys in soccer jerseys riding by on their bikes. The families arrive later. This time we wore swimsuits, sat on the sunbeds, and even swam, in a sea as blue as the cloudless sky above it and as gentle as cool bathwater (no wonder they call it a bathing club). We ate lunch at the beach club restaurant: spaghetti con vongole and calamari and a crisp, cold Verdicchio.

It doesn’t sound like all that much. But now, somehow, I can’t imagine summer without it.

Though I almost had to. In what is now a decade-long dispute between Italy and the European Commission, the beach clubs, also known as stabilmenti or lidos (not to be confused with the Lido, the seaside resort in Venice), are being threatened with the loss of their concession licenses, which grant them the right to the seaside real estate. In most regions in Italy, these licenses have been passed down from generation to generation by the families that control the individual clubs. To show their opposition to the proposed “free market” reforms demanded by the European Commission, some proprietors even threatened a strike this summer, an action that would have had an impact on the national psyche second only to another failure to qualify for the World Cup.

Predictably, Italy has reacted with a blend of byzantine explanations, providing maps that “prove” that the country’s 27,000 beach clubs actually take up a much smaller percentage of the 8300 kilometers of coastline than had originally been calculated, working the dynamics of European politics (do the Germans and Dutch really want to lose their holiday in Riccione over this?), and an impassioned appeal to historical precedent.

While it seems that the Italian beach clubs have been around forever— one pictures Odysseus sailing up to the Land of the Cyclopes and confronting a bunch of bikini-clad bathers and a loudspeaker advertising a sale at the Esselunga— they actually began in the 1800’s and received their first big boost in popularity from none other than Mussolini, who was a frequent visitor. Thankfully, that was before the invention of the Speedo— but still, one can imagine. For some reason, they seem to remain a favorite of far-right politicians (Matteo Salvini often spends part of his summer vacation pressing the flesh along the lungomare) an alliance that might actually come in handy in the upcoming political negotiations.

Work, Work Work— I prefer the sound of the sea.

Thankfully, it was still business as usual at our beach club this year (like your butcher at the market, one remains loyal to their lido) and when we finally made it there in late August, there was a sense of calm after a storm. The searing heat of the summer of 2024 had softened, the Ferragosto crowds had packed up, and if they were facing impending doom, the crew at the club seemed to take it in their usual relaxed stride.

Giulio, in his swim trunks, t-shirt and straw fedora, cigarette jutting out of the side of his mouth, sets us up with our sunbeds and umbrella. At 10:30 in the morning, the water is mostly empty, save for a young couple floating out to sea in a purple blow-up easy chair.

At that hour, it’s mostly nonnas and nonnos arriving with their golden as a pancake grandchildren— to be joined by the parents for lunch. Most of the crowd here are regulars who rent their spots for the whole summer and they greet each other like season-ticket holders at a Yankees game. It’s not only the proprietors who have a historical claim to these beaches. Some of these chaise lounges have been passed down for generations as well.

Next to us, a woman is making a full sun-dial rotation with her lettino to find the perfect angle, then starts in adjusting the umbrella. To watch an Italian position a beach chair is to realize that they understand sunning in a way that a North American never will. A middle-aged man in baggy swim shorts walks along the edge of the surf, earphones in both ears, gesticulating wildly as he argues with the home office about an errant supplier. A older man passes him and nods, his bright white hair and mustache perched on his thin brown body like the foam on top of a macchiato.

At lunch, there’s classic Italian pop music playing in the background, the songs of a thousand summers that have come and gone. The sunbeds are mostly empty, but everyone’s left their supplies hanging from the umbrellas—a backpack, a shirt, a hat, a towel, a soccer ball—creating a Calder mobile as they bobble in the breeze.

I don’t claim to have enough knowledge to make an informed statement about the whole European Union versus the lidos issue. But I will say that on a scale of things that are broken in this world, the Italian beach club falls a long way down the list. On a national level, only spaghetti would seem to have more universal support.

The waning days of August always carry a slightly sad undercurrent, and for C & I, this summer had an ending more poignant than usual. Midway through our summer break, we received news that a treasured relative was nearing the end of a graceful and generous life. My Aunt Patty’s family had long ties to the Oregon coast and there was something in her ease and openness that always reminded me of the beach—even if her style was more Ralph Lauren in Cape Cod than rustic Pacific Coast seafarer.

But in the end, maybe beach experiences aren’t really so different from one shore to another anyway. From an exclusive resort to a fishing town, a secret island paradise to a colorful, crowd-pleasing lido, it’s ultimately the essentials that remain:

Sea. Sun. Sand. Sky. And somewhere, a sailboat—pushing slowly toward the horizon.