Beach Weekends

I have spent the past 3 weekends at the beach and I must say, I'm loving it! Lately, the days in Rome have been far too hot to go outside, so I have mostly stayed in the apartment.  I look forward to the weekends when my friends don't work and I have the opportunity to get out.  Temperatures at the beach are much cooler than in the city and the sea breeze is wonderful.

This past Saturday, I went to Borgo Sabotino with Raffaele and Valeria. We didn't know where we were going when we got off the highway; we just knew that the beach was nearby and decided to stop here.  The forecast called for rain north of Rome, so we decided to drive to Borgo Sabotino which is about an hour south of the city. We were lucky and didn't hit any rain.

A lot of the beaches near Rome are private and you have to pay for a chair and umbrella which runs around 8-10 euros/person. The beach at Borgo Sabotino was free, which I was all for!! I'm perfectly happy laying on my towel rather than on a lounge chair. The water at this beach was quite dirty though, as they say the sea usually is near Rome.  We went in the water when we first got there, but never again.  We found a shower nearby, so when we were hot, we would rinse off there.

A man was walking around selling fresh coconut.  Valeria asked me if I wanted a piece.  I was a little hesitant at first as I have never eaten coconut that is not shredded and comes in a bag.  It was actually quite good! It didn't have a ton of flavor and definitely tasted different than dried coconut, but I would eat it again.


Sunday, Raffaele, Simone and I went north to a beach at Santa Severa. We got a late start that morning and didn't get into Santa Severa until 11:45. We drove around for 30 minutes trying to find parking.  We finally found a spot, parked, and started walking to the beach when we saw a sign that said that cars parked on that side of the street would be towed if you park there. We walked back to the car, drove around for another 10 minutes and found no luck.  We decided to leave that part of town and drive down the road where we found a rocky beach with a ton of parking spots. Obviously, we didn't want to lay on rocks and saw in the distance the beach we wanted to be at when we had tried to find parking. The only logical thing to do, of course, was to walk to that beach.  It was at least a 20-25 minute walk on small rocks, then a dirt path, then large rocks, and finally pavement. Things in Italy are never as simple as you'd like them to be! We ended up having a great time at the beach and found a spot near a volleyball court where we watched multiple games played throughout the day.