The Best Beaches in Abruzzo

Tips For Visiting The Beach in Italy

Here are a few tips when visiting a beach in Abruzzo, or Italy in general.

Clean beaches:  In Italy during the summer season you’ll generally find the beaches very, very clean, especially in the larger resorts.  

Two types of beaches:  Many of the beaches in Italy are private (stabilimenti) and essentially an extension of a beach bar or a beachside hotel, with neat rows of beach beds and beach parasols lined up in colour-coded rows.  If the beach is not ‘attached’ to a hotel or bar, then it is probably a public beach, which are easily recognisable as there are no neat rows of parasols on them and everyone using them will either be sun-worshippers with no shade at all or will have brought their own parasols, beach beds etc.

Costs: Public beaches, as above, you will see dotted everywhere in Abruzzo amongst the private (hotel/bar) beaches.  There is no cost for using the public beaches, but remember the public beaches have no facilities.

On the other hand,  you have to pay to use the private (bar/hotel) beaches. If you are from the UK this can be a bit of a shock (but try not to let it show).

The costs of ‘renting’ space on private beaches vary, depending on how popular the beach is, what time in the season it is, where your parasol is going to be located and indeed what time of day it is.  Sounds complicated, but it’s not.

For example, let’s say you are a couple and you turn up at one of the beach bars dotted along the coast near Pescara/Francavilla. 

Just asked one of the staff how much it costs to hire an umbrella and sunbeds (the standard charge is usually for one parasol and two sunbeds/chairs).   If you like the price then, pay your money and a staff member will generally show you to your place on the beach.  If you don’t like the price, you’ve got a couple of options, you can go try another bar/hotel – their prices may be cheaper.  Or, you may be able to negotiate a better price especially if it is towards the end of the season, and the beaches aren’t full, or if you just want to stay on the beach for half the day just ask for a half day. 

Note:  In the height of summer during the Italian holidays, the main resorts will all be very busy, and you may have trouble finding a spot on the private beaches so don’t try and negotiate then as it won’t work.

Facilities:  Private beaches offer all the facilities you would expect toilets, changing cubicles, showers, a bar and usually snacks and food, and their patch of beach is usually pristine – that is what you are paying for.  They often have a lifeguard too.  It is worth the price.

Mistakes we’ve made:  We’ve spent some time on beaches in Italy, and the first error we made was not asking for a better price when we could have done (ie at the end of the season). 

Another mistake we made on our first visit to the beach was just plonking down on a couple of beach beds under a parasol and thinking that someone would come along from the bar and charge us for them, as sometimes happens in other countries around the Med.  However we failed to notice the little ticket fluttering under the parasol with a name on it, and we were soon very apologetically informed that this particular parasol /sunbed combo was rented for the entire season by an Italian family (a season pass), and they could turn up any minute.  This occurs a lot in the larger and busier resorts.  We swallowed our mild embarrassment and allowed ourselves to be shuffled to another area.