The notoriously regulated world of Italian beaches has long been a source of irritation and, occasionally, acrimony, during the long hot month of August. If you are prepared to pay for the private beach clubs, sunbathing on the emerald coast or the Italian Riviera can be a delightful and ordered experience.
However, less prosperous sun-seekers, hoping to find an acceptable patch of public sand for free, often find themselves in an unseemly scrum. This summer, as austerity bites in Italy, class war has broken out on Italy’s coast.
Record numbers of ordinary Italians are forsaking the traditional month-long summer break by the sea, according to Rosario Trefiletti, president of consumer group Federconsumatori.
“For the first time,” Trefiletti said, “the number of Italians enjoying a real holiday has plunged to around 37 percent, not counting those who are eking out time off using long weekends.”
Low-wage earners, he added, are having a “horrible summer,” in unusually scorching temperatures.
The Italian daily La Repubblica this month portrayed the plight of a typical pensioner left in an Italian city who would find a supermarket where he could mix with other old people “all in search of air conditioning, some cruising for hours, with one lemon in their trolley.”
The rich, on the other hand, have never had it so good. The luxury beach club scene is enjoying an unprecedented boom in places such as Lerici, where the wife of the pop star Zucchero has just opened Eco del Mare, a sandy cove for the select where masseurs, physiotherapists and a hairdresser wander among the luxury beach beds. A private lift takes bathers down to the sands and the entrance fee for a day is 83 euros (US$105).
The excluded hoi polloi are furious.
“These clubs and their prices are a sign of the cultural decline of Italy,” said Carlo Rienzi, president of a second consumer group, Codacons. “Take Paraggi, near Portofino, where you choose between a few square meters of free beach or pay 110 euros for two sun beds at the beach club where the sea is filthy anyway.”
“It demonstrates the stupidity of rich people who want to pay just to be close to Portofino,” he said.
Coughing up 110 euros for an umbrella, cabin and Wi-Fi for a day at Paraggi’s Bagni Fiore club allows the status-conscious to bathe in view of the seafront villa owned by Dolce & Gabbana and the palatial holiday home and park rented this year by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s son, Pier Silvio.
“There is always a demand for places here from rich customers who can spend without feeling the pinch,” spokesman Gianni Di Meo said.
Like all beach clubs in Italy, the high-end operations occupy public land, paying an often tiny fee to the state for use of the beach, but justifying their high prices with luxury services. At clubs in Forte dei Marmi, where an umbrella for a season can cost 14,000 euros, personal trainers prowl among the deckchairs.
Eco del Mare’s owners have defended the costly upgrade, which has reportedly seen the dowdy Milanese magistrates who frequented the club replaced by a chic clientele.
“It was the clients themselves who demanded the extra services,” club secretary Silvia Marini said.
Even down-at-heel beach clubs are squeezing out regular Italians, with a couple typically spending 37 euros for a day at the sea, including beds, umbrella, water and a sandwich; far more than the 23 to 25 euros in Greece or Spain. Consumers’ rights campaigners are demanding radical reform to the system.
Meanwhile, the Italian tax authorities have caught the resentful mood. They have set up checkpoints in ports and interrogated well-heeled yachtsmen, including the ageing rock star Vasco Rossi, after discovering that 64 percent of all yachts in Italy are registered to frontmen or companies to avoid paying tax on them.
Rossi, who has a 24m yacht called Jamaica, promised fans through his Web site that he paid his taxes and the check was a routine matter.
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