Viareggio

Tuesday May 31^st

Today we made our way to the Italian coastline.  We visited Viareggio, which is about an hour and 20 minutes via train from Florence.   We walked from the train station directly to the beach, about 10 blocks away.  All of the beach access points seemed to be for private beach clubs, and we didn’t really want to pay for access to the beach today.  So we took a break and had lunch while we tried to figure out how the beach access worked.

Along the beachfront was a pedestrian only street, lined with restaurants, gelato shops and other beach type stores.  We opted for some thick Sicilian type pizza sold by the weight.  We just pointed to the type that we wanted, and the counter man cut off a slice and weighed it.  Katie had a slice with hot dog like pieces on it, and I had a sausage one.  We sat on a nearby bench to eat it.  It was simply outstanding.  Every bite was more delicious than the one before.  Compared to the pizza we had in Florence the day before, it was light years ahead.  Of course, here in Viareggio, there were no American or other tourists to be found, just Italians at the seaside.   This was no tourist pizza, but the real thing.  Plus it was cheap. I paid only 4.50 euros for our lunch, compared to 26 euros in Florence!

After lunch, I decided that our best bet to find an English speaker to explain the beach access was in a nice hotel.  We headed into the Hotel President, and indeed found an English speaking clerk at reception.  He explained that the only public beach access was at the end of the promenade and it was small.  So we set out and found a VERY narrow strip of beach set aside for free access. It was only about 15 wide and made a narrow stripe down to the seas from the promenade.  The fishing pier was on one side, and the other side was marked by a large wire mesh fence that separated us from the paying clients at the adjacent beach club.  The sand was full of cigarette butts, but we found a cleanish section and spread out our towels.

We walked down to the Mediterranean Sea and walked in the water.  It turns out that the 5 meters of beach from the waves up onto the shore are also public access, although you can’t spread a towel there.  The area is for walking and swimming.  So we were not limited to the small section in front of the public beach, but could walk down a bit.  We waded into the water and played for a while – it was not warm, but not cool either, just sort of an in-between temperature.  Katie was perfectly happy splashing in the shallow water.  It was no more than mid-thigh for deep as far as we cared to walk out. 

There were plenty of people in the water, all in our region near the public access.  There was a huge group of 20something girls in tiny bikinis and some boys the same age flirting shamelessly with them.  There were old men in tiny speedos dragging nets through the water and the first layer of sand scooping up some kind of shellfish, and there were several families with small children playing in the water.  A little girl of about 3 was swimming naked, and building sand castles.  Katie was sure she was getting sand in places that it would not be nice to have all sandy.

After swimming for awhile, Katie built some sand castles and then watched the water wash them away.  The waves were very small, and the tide moved in only about 6 inches in the two hours that we were there.  After a while the wind off the sea cooled us enough to get up and go.  We washed off all the sand in the water and went up to the warm towels to lie and dry off.  Once dry we were able to dust off most of the remaining sand, and pull our clothes on over our suits. Not perfectly clean, but good enough for the train ride home. We got some gelato for a snack and caught the train back to Florence.

Tomorrow Paul arrives to send the last 10 days or our trip with us.  I can’t believe that the trip is drawing to a close, yet it is such a long time since we were in Stockholm.  Katie and I have had some amazing adventures and learned a lot about ourselves and each other.  This trip has really strengthened the bonds between us, and although we are both really looking forward to heading home, we will both miss the fun times that we have had together.  We have been incredibly lucky to have this opportunity and we will both cherish it forever.