San Benedetto

While visiting with family, we spent two, very lazy afternoons in San Benedetto, a very sweet beach town on the Adriatic Sea. A funny note, Giulio, my husband’s cousin, says that San Benedetto is like Miami Beach. Miami Beach?! Thankfully, San Benedetto is nothing like Miami Beach!

At Salvatore and Ubbi’s home, during our first dinner with family, we mentioned we planned to spend the next day at the beach. Ubbi was so excited because she and Valeria had rented an umbrella and two beach chairs for the summer at one of the concession businesses. She was thrilled we’d be able to use their space at the Piccolo Lido.

It was perfectly lovely. The skies were blue, the sea was calm and there was a protective jetty 200 meters out from the beach. The family who operates the Piccolo Lido were very kind to us, it was nice and clean and we had a fun, relaxing time. A teenager and preteen can tend to get on each other’s nerves (and ours!) after a jetlag spell. Swimming and bobbing in the Adriatic freed them. They were like little kids again – it was great.

Every beach I’ve been to in Italy, operates a concession system. If you want access to the beach, you have to pay for the privilege. Sometimes, there is a slip of property, at the end of the beach, where there isn’t a concession. It’s usually littered with debris, rocky (the concessions bring in and maintain their sand) and the people and activities there are questionable.

We actually went to one once. We were in Venice, surrounded by water, it was hot and we really wanted to swim. So we took the Vaporetto over to the Lido and walked down to the shore. We stopped at each and every concession, and they were all full. It was the first of August, so every Italian able to take vacation, was on the beach. We got to the very end and there was the free beach. At that point, we were desperate. We didn’t have towels or beach amenities, but we decided to go for it. We found a little gravelly location for our things and swam and played. We felt a bit grimy, so we bathed when we returned to our hotel. The next morning, our skin peeled off. I’m not kidding. We all lost a layer. We must have been next to an industrial waste disposal…

Each concession has a little snack bar, dining area, bathrooms, shower, changing rooms and tons of numbered umbrellas and chairs – you rent your space for as much time as you like. The higher end concessions offer cabanas, a game room, air conditioning in the dining area, waiters and waitresses, etc. The way you can recognize your concession after going out for a dip is to remember the color/design of your concession’s umbrellas. The view of the beach from the sea is so colorful because of the various colors of the umbrellas waving in the breeze.

The concession prices can be a bit shocking to Americans, because we are used to going to wherever we like to swim and not having to pay a cent. Only recently has New York City offered private clubs with swimming pool access, which I can completely understand, as real estate is such a premium.

Our first concession experience, thankfully, was in San Benedetto. We randomly chose a cute concession, paid our 30 euro for 4 chairs and 2 umbrellas and had a great day at the beach.

Our most shocking concession experience was another trip to Venice. We were staying at The Bauer Hotel (highly recommend!) and again, we wanted to go over to the Lido to spend a day at the beach. Rather than relive our first Lido experience, we asked our concierge to call a concession and make a reservation for us. He booked us at The Excelsior Hotel. We weren’t familiar with The Excelsior – so many hotels all over Europe interchange names, but we guessed it would be a nice beach. We didn’t require a cabana, just an umbrella and two chairs, thank you. 75 euros later, we were sitting at the most exclusive beach, in the most exclusive hotel on the Lido, in the cheap seats. Yes, that’s right, the economy section, behind all of the cabanas, along the path for the wait staff, with no access to wait staff - for $115! I have no idea how much it costs to rent the view seats, let alone a cabana, and I don’t even want to. It was certainly a memorable learning experience.

That reminds me… I watched the 2010 Chanel Resort Collection on Style.com. I loved the Edwardian influenced designs – the sailor suits, the stripes - it was magical. Karl Lagerfeld staged that fashion show at The Excelsior. I hope they cut him and his 350 guests a deal!