A Visit to the Beach

In Italy many of the beaches are “private,” meaning that to get a beach chair, space, bathroom access, etc. on the ocean you have to pay for your “spot.” (There are some public areas but it is much nicer to use the private areas.) Some people find it annoying, I actually kind of like it because you are relieved of the hassle of bringing your own chair and all the little beaches have small “bars” that serve pizza, chips, pop, espresso, etc. – all you have to do is show up with your bathing suit and towels. They even have little changing rooms and showers to wash up. They are however, crowded, but for the most part, Italy is crowded and that also doesn’t bother us because we were expecting it. Last Saturday was the last day of official beach season and all the private beaches were closing up shop for the winter. We had a car for the week, so we drove out to the nearest beach, Choggia (pronounced kee-o-jeea) about 35 miles away and found a wonderful sandy area of the Adriatic, south of Venice. Since the beach was so big, all the private beach clubs had pools, playgrounds, etc, etc. It is obviously a big resort area with lots of hotels, etc. and we were bummed out that we had found it so late in the season (so late – like as “on the last day of beach season!”). If we only knew now, what we didn’t know in those hot steamy days of July and August. It was really too cold to swim in the ocean and the pools, etc. weren’t open, but the kids had a lot of fun exploring. And, as usual, with our children, garbage is treasures and there was a lot of garbage from a busy summer season. The Brusilow children are pictured here with their “treasures.” The thing that Isabelle and Sam is standing in front of is a headless dog carcass. The kids brought it to us with great delight and sincerity thinking they were bringing the skeleton of some kind of large sea animal and we immediately acted with great disgust. A second later, quick recovery and a quick moment in the category of “politically-correct parenting in the new millennium”, we made one fast comment on how interesting it is to find something like that and took a picture, and then yelled “BUT it is a dead dog and get it away from us NOW!” (Of course these are the same children who have a grandma who took them on a hike in Colorado and brought home the skull of a dead dog, boiled it in our “cramped for space and fresh air” condo to rid the skull, but not our condo of the putrid smell of decaying flesh and Sam brings it to show his class every new school year. But I digress, apparently, its fun to find dead animals when you are a kid.) Nick gathered a palette, a rudder from some kind of small day sailor and various other things to use to make his own boat.




It was a grand day; Bill & I just got to laze and watch the boats and ocean and fantasize about staying in Italy for two years instead of just one and the kids got to run, explore, and fantasize about sailing the seas on homemade watercraft.