Summer on national beaches as a national concept we would say that it is in Danger of extinction In southern Europe. And not for the desire, but for the cost. If you start noticing a Run Run Among your acquaintances where talking about vacation on the coast seems little less than an urban legend for the exorbitant price, Italy has a message for navigators: they no longer give to hammocks and umbrellas.
If touring homeland He was getting so expensive that he came out More profitable the Caribbeannow we have record.
A beach banquet. Counted in a report The New York Times that, on the beaches of Apulia, especially in Bari, the time of lunch was always a Collective show Where entire families display tables, tablecloths and trays full of lasagers, rice with mussels, seafood pastes, fried sausages or raw octopus, keeping alive a custom that goes back to the rise of mass tourism in the postwar period.
This practice, popularly known as Fagottari (Those who load with food packages), have their roots in the Italian working culture, when the beach holidays were the Unique accessible luxury and the shared banquet represented a community celebration.
A tradition in crisis. Going to the beach in Italy has been a deeply rooted cultural ritual for decades, one marked by the custom of rent sun loungers, umbrellas and cabins in the so -called as stabilimenti Balnari They control much of the coast.
However, this summer the influx has fallen between 15% and 25% compared to the previous year in private concessions, especially on working days, while on weekends the beaches continue to fill. The difference is also in consumption: those who come spend less on bars and restaurants, a reflection of generalized economic discomfort.
The weight of inflation and prices. The most repeated explanation by business associations is the Loss of purchasing power in a context of inflation and increased cost of life. But this assistance crisis is also associated with the SUSTAINED UP of prices on private beaches, which have increased by 17% in four years.
For example, the most extreme: rent two sun louges and an umbrella costs no less than 30 euros on the beaches of Lazio and up to 90 euros in fashion places like Gallipoli, in Puglia. The image of private beaches with rows of empty hammocks has become a symbol of disenchantment.
The confrontation. There are more. Given that The Times underlined that in recent years, the rise of foreign tourism and the proliferation of the Stabilimenti Balnari They have been restricting the public space, making access and, in some cases, imposing rules that prohibit introducing food.
Club owners allege the need to preserve the “decoration” and income of their bars, but neighbors denounce an attack on A basic rightbecause the law recognizes that Beaches are public And it cannot be forbidden to wear food. The conflict has reached political and legal dyes, with headlines that describe an authentic “Picnic Picnic War”, in which lawyers, consumer associations and even politicians They have intervened.
The political and cultural debate. The Guardian told that the phenomenon has opened a deeper debate about the concentration of private management on the Italian coasts, which leaves little space to public beaches. Figures known as actor Alessandro Gassmann They have pointed out That the combination of “exaggerated” prices and economic difficulties is pushing the Italians towards the free beaches.
Sector defenders claim that prices have not grown as much as they say and that They include services security and lifeguards, but consumer associations denounce that concessions have become A “black hole” For families finance. For the locals, the fact of having to hide or defend their fasteners represents a symbol of alienation and loss of identity. “Apulia is no longer ours”, Some regretremembering how free beaches have been absorbed by luxury resorts today.
Citizen rebellion. Outrage has materialized In protests From Sicily to Liguria. In Lavinio, near Anzio, politician Matteo Hallissey (+Europe) was pushed when planting an umbrella to denounce illegal posters of “private beach”. In Mondello (Sicily), demonstrations made the authorities order to remove turniquetes that prevented access to sand. In Metaponto (Basilicata), the Police intervened to confiscate hundreds of sun loungers and umbrellas illegally.
In Naples, activists protested against fenced sections In the spy of the monache, while in Marina di Pietrasanta (Toscana) They nailed umbrellas in the sand as a symbolic act of coastal reappropriation. These actions have visible a generalized discomfort: the feeling that the sea, collective heritage, has been usurped for private interests with the complicity of politicians fearful to face a powerful lobby.
The lobby strength. The Stabilimenti sector constitutes a Economic framework Family and hereditary in many coastal regions, where businesses are transmitted from parents to children and generate fortunes linked to summer tourism. In locations such as Bacoli, near Naples, summer income can exceed 100,000 daily visitors.
The power of this lobby has made successive governments, for two decades, have avoided Impose real limits to the privatization of the beaches. Faced with this inertia, some mayors, such as Josi Della Ragione in Bacoli, have promoted shock measures: decree that at least 50% From the coast it is freely accessible, knock down illegal constructions and remove equipment that blocks the passage. His determination has faced mafia interests and death threats, but symbolizes institutional resistance to the private appropriation of the sea.
Mountain displacement. Thus, while private beaches lose customers, tourism is being redirected Towards the mountainwith special intensity In Los Dolomitaswhere some municipalities already alert risk of massification. The trend does not respond only to the economic factor: more and more Italians seek refuge in fresh altitudes to escape stifling summers, intensified by the climatic crisis.
This tourist transfer symbolizes a cultural transformation into Italian summer vacations, in which The traditional model Private beach staggers in front of new social, economic and environmental realities.
Perhaps for this reason, those shirts are, in words of manythe last thing left in some more and more privatized and exclusive coasts, a shy conquest of the Veranos Italians that no decree or luxury resort can erase.
Image | Phill Connell, Rawpixel
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