The Beach in Winter

And now, after a month eating my face off back home in the States with my loved ones, we’re back in Italy. The weather is beautiful, the sea is luscious, and I’m eating pasta again after a 30-day pasta detox. The people I know here say that nothing new has happened since I’ve been away but that’s not true – Paolo’s dog has apparently started a gang war with the neighborhood strays and upstairs, my neighbors have exchanged Emilia for another baby who looks just like her but is a bit taller and screams a lot less. Uncanny, the resemblance.

I’m back at work – freelance assignments in the morning and fiction writing in the caffe by afternoon. The staff has welcomed me back and I’m expanding my knowledge of their menu by ordering hot chocolate and spremuta every once in a while. No new car drama to report and here’s hoping it stays that way.

I try to walk along the beach every day. Everyone told me that come winter, I’d be unhappy living on the very edge of town; that the beach would be dank and sad and depressing; that I’d regret my decision to stay year-round in what is by and large a tourist town.

I dunno. Doesn’t seem so bad to me.

19 Replies to “The Beach in Winter”

  1. Here’s hoping it stays that way….

  2. I actually always loved the beach more in the winter than Summer. Summer makes it adulterously altered….covers it up with a diversity of scents and colors unnecessary to its natural beauty. Bareness is better, but not when you are wearing a bikini….

    1. I kind of like it better this way as well – less traffic and less madness. If I go at the right time, I can pretend I’m the only person in the world.

  3. I think they underestimate Floridian staying power. The entire state of Florida is only existant for tourists, and in the winter it empties, leaving only the frail or the insane. Your peaceful Italian beach, devoid of insane old people in speedos, is the epitome of the only way I ever enjoy the beach. 🙂 Glad things are going peaceful for you.

    1. Ah, yes, Kao… I remember the snowbirds well….

  4. This is terrible to say as I’m in Summer in Lima right now but I saw the cuff of your big comfy sweater and missed home.

  5. I adore the beach in winter, and I’d love to live by one. The sea’s calming and positively lonely effects don’t really get to shine through all the speedos and towels in summer…

    1. You said it, Ivy. Or through the cigarette smoke and hawkers, the crowds and screaming children. The beach in winter – bliss.

  6. Absolutely awful place. Truly you have fallen on you ass when it comes to location. I mean, look at that first picture: leaden skies, a myopic view and nothing interesting to look at, at *all*.

    And call me picky, but I like my beaches to have a bit of sand. I mean, sandy beaches, the kind where you walk backwards just to enjoy the sight of your own footprints, where you walk barefoot to enjoy the sand between your toes, *that*’s what it’s all about.

    Your beach looks rubbish.

    I can fully understand how you’ve come to hate the place as time has gone on. Who wouldn’t?

    Come to England instead, now *we* know how to make seasides appealing.

    http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090717075913AAWw9bE

    1. I hear Hull is lovely this time of year.

  7. That first shot makes your town look anything but depressing. How cold does it get there in winter?

    1. Not so cold, really – more rainy than anything else, which is gross, but it’s been pretty dry this month, thank goodness.

  8. I like the beach more in winter than summer. Same as how I like the desert more in winter. Something about the absolute bareness they posses then – it is perfection

  9. “Emilia for another baby who looks just like her but is a bit taller and screams a lot less. Uncanny, the resemblance.” Hilarious!

    1. I hear her little feet pounding around upstairs right now.

  10. The picture of you holding the seashells – I think it is the tidbit of the sweater that make the picture so inviting.

    I’m with Aly – the fact it is so desolate makes it even more beautiful.

    1. I almost dread the approach of tourist season. Thankfully we still have a few more months.

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