Sunset on the Beach

It’s 7.30 in the evening, on the beach at Marina di Pietrasanta, and we have it almost to ourselves.  The tourists have all gone back to their hotels and the bagnos are empty.  The umbrellas make a kind of post-modernist installation of colour and line along the sand.

There’s a couple walking their dog along the edge of the sea - just pinpoints in the distance along miles of naked sand.

 The waves are rolling in with un-mediterranean ferocity.  We had a thunderstorm last night and some wild and windy weather, the remnants of cloud still clinging over the hills, and it’s washed up the odd tree trunk on the shore.  But here are the tractors that clear the drift wood every evening to make it pristine for tomorrow’s bathers.

This is the time I love - an hour or so before sunset, warm-ish at 20 degrees with a cool breeze off the sea.  I like the angles of light and the fact that there are no human sounds to interrupt the constant roar and hiss of the sea.

Neil is doing boy-things in the sand, trying out some ideas for a sand sculpture. 

Neil digging to Australia

Every summer there’s a performance art festival on the beach and the artists here make sophisticated sandcastles.  Neil, perversely, is digging.  He’s not sure yet whether he’s going to take part, but I think it would be fun.

Now the dog-walkers and the tractors are gone and it’s only the two of us and the sea. The sun is setting over the Cinque Terre.  After all the frenetic travelling and the earthquakes of recent days, such peace as this is perfect bliss!