You arrive via Via delle Acacie, a road lined with holiday villas painted in faded pastels—apricot, mint, sunflower yellow—each with a small garden where oleander blooms. The beach unfolds in tidy sections: numbered stabilimenti with orderly rows of blue and white umbrellas, interspersed with spiaggia libera zones where families spread blankets directly on sand the color of biscotti. The Adriatic laps gently here, its water a milky turquoise over shallow sandbars that let children wade out fifty meters without losing their footing.
“The only Adriatic resort where flamingo watching rivals sunbathing as the main attraction.”
Credit: UnsplashCrystal lagoon with rocky outcrop
Behind the dunes, the Valli di Comacchio begin—a labyrinth of brackish lagoons stitched together by wooden fishing platforms called bilancioni, their counterweighted nets dipping and rising like mechanical herons. You'll smell the lagoon before you see it: a briny, slightly vegetal scent that mingles with sunscreen and grilling eel from the scattered trattorie. Rent a bike and pedal the raised paths between water and reeds, where pink flamingos stand on one leg in the shallows, improbable against the industrial flatness of the delta.
The town center—a compact grid of gelaterias, newsstands, and shops selling inflatable rafts—caters to Italian families on budget summer holidays. Evenings bring a gentle corso along Viale Tamerici, where you'll queue at the rosticceria for crescentine (fried dough puffs) and watch teenagers practice wheelies on scooters. The beach clubs close at seven, leaving the shore to dog-walkers and those content with the sound of wavelets on sand.
