Viareggio Beach

Viareggio faces the Ligurian Sea in northern Tuscany, with the Apuan Alps rising behind it. The beach runs about six kilometres, and along almost all of it the sand is divided into bagni — licensed bathing establishments, each with its own name, its own numbered rows of umbrellas and its own bar.

It is the clearest surviving example of a particular Italian institution. Sea bathing was organised here from the 1820s and industrialised by the end of the century; the Passeggiata promenade was rebuilt after a fire in 1917 in Liberty style, and the surviving pavilions along it — Gran Caffè Margherita among them — are why the town is studied as much as visited. The February carnival, running since 1873, is the other thing Viareggio is known for.

The shore is fine pale sand on a shallow, sheltered stretch of coast with very little swell, which is why the concession model works here: the water is calm enough that the whole family stays put for a week. The slope is gentle and the swimming easy. Sand is groomed daily by each establishment within its own frontage.

Development is the concession system itself, and it is worth understanding before arriving. Most of the sand is private: you pay for a numbered umbrella and two loungers, generally by the day or the week, and the free public sections are limited and marked. This is normal along much of the Italian coast and surprises visitors who expect open beach.

A hundred and fifty years of organised Italian seaside, still organised. The Liberty architecture along the front is the reason to walk it, the bathing establishments are the reason the sand looks as it does, and the free sections are small and known to everyone. Come in Carnival week for the floats or in September for the beach.