Without me there would be no beach

I’m the sand. Without me, there’d be no beach. The sea would be a stonier, rockier and starker place. There’d be nowhere to play and no gentle slope leading down into the waves.

The sea and I have been friends for a very long time. We were close companions long before you chose to come on holiday here and before Bibione even had a name. I came into this world in the distant past, when the Adriatic Sea first formed. I’m little but I get everywhere and I can count on the wisdom that millions of years on this planet bring.

In the winter, I sometimes take a pounding from the stormy seas and the strong north winds. In the spring I start to warm up, as the sunshine gets brighter every day. I really come into my own in the summer, when kids have a whale of a time digging holes, building sandcastles, getting covered in my grains and running around without a care in the world. I bridge the gap between the land and the sea. In the warmest months of the year, you can feel your bare feet sink into me softly as you take an early morning stroll to the lighthouse.

Boules players use me as a playing surface, throwing balls onto me during games with their friends. Beach volleyball players send the ball crashing into me when they spike it. I offer couples a little warmth when they come down here at night to sit by the sea, look at the moon and express their feelings for each other.

I provide a home for tough, tenacious plants that thrive in saline soils, such as tamarisks. There are lots of them in the area known as Lido dei Pini, where you can picture how the whole coast used to be as you take long strolls among the pine woods and the sand dunes.

IOver the years, human beings have learned to respect the riches that the plants and I can offer them, without asking for anything in return. They’ve created special conservation areas, rehabilitated land, and left nature to live and do what it does best: create beauty that’s accessible to everyone.

All that I ask is to be left here so that I can listen to the sound of the waves, play with people of all ages, talk to the sea and hear its stories about the other places that it’s seen.

Every season and every day is special in my mind, even the ones that you humans don’t like so much. That includes the autumn, when everything slows down and closes. It’s a real treat to go for a walk on the beach on hot October afternoons or windy November days, when it seems like the gusts might blow the whole world away. It warms your heart and makes you look forward to the following summer even more eagerly.