I have sand between my toes, a cooling drink in my hand and as I recline on the pile of inflatable tires, I can hear trains rumble past somewhere above my head. I am in a deranged Wild West village that looks as if it has been dropped from a great height on to a beach, with potted palms and AC/DC hollering out from the DJ booth.
Before Paris got its Plage and London, Amsterdam and even Birmingham jumped on the "sandwagon," there was Berlin. A former swamp 240km from the sea, the German capital perfected inland beach culture about 95 years before other landlocked cities. And as parks and squares across Europe are hurriedly transformed into artificial beaches this summer, Berlin is really pushing the boat out.
A mongrel country-and-western style beach, bar and play area, Strandmarkt is one of 30 beaches that have sprung up in Berlin. This stretch of sand is more than a little crazy. It's almost as bonkers as taking a beach holiday in a European capital far from the coast. The only thing that isn't balmy is the weather.
My Australian companion is skeptical. Australians don't need to build beaches and they don't understand those who do. Unfortunately, on our first evening in Berlin, the rain-lashed deck chairs of the first urban beach we visit - bizarrely billed as boasting wonderful views of Berlin's new railway station at sunset - look as hapless as an out-of-season English seaside resort.
The following day is also a washout. But it's here that the advantages of a holiday in a real city with fake beaches (as opposed to the usual fake city on a real beach) hit home. Our hotel's chic gray minimalism and amazing breakfasts (served until a very civilized 1pm on Sunday) are perfect for a gray day, as are Berlin's museums, most notably, Daniel Libeskind's striking, disturbing Jewish museum. Then there's the added bonus of Germany's superstar polar bear, Knut, who looks deliriously content when cool rain falls on the city's zoo.
Beach weather threatens to break out by the second evening and a stroll to Strandbar Mitte on the edge of Monbijou Park in the city center reveals why Berlin does beaches so well. Where in Britain could you arrive at 9.30pm on a Saturday and get a drink and a seat straight away? Where in Ibiza could you instantly plunk yourself on a chair right by the water? Forget the stereotypes about the race for the sun-loungers; in Berlin, there's a deck chair for everyone.
Rumpled like a trendy haircut, yet blessed with that German talent for order, Berlin boasts incredible space. Vast tracts of the city still lie in undeveloped, post-industrial ruins - the legacy of its painful cold war division. Much is the kind of desolate riverside that became London's Docklands 20 years ago. It's perfect beach-building territory.
Inland beaches probably began with the Wannseebad, a traditional lakeside bathing spot out in the suburbs beyond Berlin's Grunewald forest that celebrates its 100th anniversary this summer after a long program of refurbishment. But Strandbar Mitte was the first modern urban beach to open in the center of Berlin. It first scattered the sand in 2002 (the same year as the more celebrated Paris Plage). This summer, it offers a thick carpet of proper beach sand, palm trees and cozy Strandkorben (literally, "beach baskets"), the traditional German two-seater beach chairs.
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