Beach culture – nostalgia and contrast #069

I’ve just returned from a few days on Elba - yes, Napoleon’s island – and it got me thinking about Italian beach culture and my North Devon youth.

Elba

Elba. Off the Tuscany coast, about a 3 hour drive and 1 hour ferry ride north of Rome. Or an hour south of Pisa. It’s not Sicily, nor Sardinia. It’s perhaps more akin to Corsica some 30 miles away (although full disclosure, I’ve never been).

It’s mountainous, lush with divine beaches and crystal clear waters.

Scary, steep, windy roads, driven at speed by the locals. Climbed doggedly by the growing cycling population. Hill towns, beach and cliff top bars and a wonderful array of osterias and cafés.

In June it is pleasantly busy, readying itself for the arrival of summering Germans, and suffocating Romans heading to Elba to escape the sweltering heat of the city.

Brummie abroad

But, as a Brummie aboard, lucky enough to have been brought up in North Devon, what struck me most was the Italian beach culture and the memories it evoked.

Aside from the obvious - the predictable hot and sunny summers, and warm, alluring Mediterranean Sea – it’s the contrast with my earlier beach years in Blighty that intrigued me.

When I first visited Elba ten years or so ago, I didn’t get it.

Contrasts

Ordered, functioning beach beds, complete with head shades, umbrellas and tables all in rows atop the carefully raked sand. A hierarchy of prestige implied by one’s closeness to the sea. What happened to a bath towel, rolled up clothes for a pillow and, if you’re lucky a windbreak or hidey hole in the sand dunes? And what use are umbrellas except to shelter from a pelting, passing rain shower? Or to huddle under as you wait for the sea mist to lift.

Mahogany tanned bodies, carefully spit roasted to perfection, modesty covered by skimpy bikinis or speedos. All proudly on display, regardless of age, dress size or waistline. Little sign of pale, translucent, sunburned Brits.

Women of a certain age standing knee deep in the water doing their morning exercise regime, gossiping or putting the world to rights. A contrast to the involuntary ‘hokey cokey’ performed when entering the Bristol Channel for a bracing dip.

The morning cappuccino experience at a cool beachside café a far cry from a thermos of instant Nescafe, milky tea or a ‘Tupper’ of weak, warm, orange squash. Not to mention the freshly cooked fish and seafood with sun ripened tomatoes for lunch. Give me a homemade egg sarnie, speckled with sand, and a packet of Cheese and Onion anytime...

The afternoons spent snoozing, snorkelling or SUP-ing¹ so different to the bucket and spade, sandcastles and ‘bat and ball’ of my youth. Albeit, as a teenager, those childhood games were replaced by studious sunbathing, slathered in Hawaiian Tropic, factor 2 (if you were being cautious) or cooking oil if you were going for the full Bo Derek.

And did I mention the showers and changing rooms? To wash the sea salt off and maintain your modesty. I much preferred my matted hair, full of sea salt, lemon juice and ‘Sun-In’ to promote that tousled – some may say bedraggled - beach look.

Nostalgia

But of course, my teenage years are a distant memory and clearly, in part at least, not true of today’s teenage beach experience. Afterall, would any teenager today cycle 8 miles (on a friend’s Dad’s tandem once) or hitchhike (don’t tell my mum!) to the beach?

And of course everyone is factor 30’d plus up these days as we protect ourselves from the sun’s wrinkling, ageing and cancerous rays.

Tentative sea dips and body boarding on splintered, wooden boards has been replaced by full wet suits and surf lessons topped off by a horse box converted beach sauna.

How beach life has changed.

Yet, the one thing that hasn’t changed for me is the sense of joy, chill and wellbeing that comes from a day spent sunning, playing and snoozing on the beach. Whether in Elba or, weather permitting, my favourite beach in North Devon, Saunton.

You

As ever, I’m interested in you. What are your teenage beach memories? What do you miss from those less sophisticated days? And what would you now not give up to return to those years? Do drop me a line, I’d love to hear from you.

And remember, you’re never going to be any younger than you are today, when might you give yourself permission to relive those carefree days of your youth?

Until next week my friends,

Ruth x

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1. SUP = Stand Up Paddle Boarding