Carla, my Italian wife, has a small house in a little town on the Adriatic near Ravenna called Lido di Dante, right next to one of the last unspoilt beaches in Italy.
But we cannot go to this spectacular beach because even though it is una spiaggia libera (open to all and free) and therefore di tutti (everyone’s) it is infested with nudists and their related sub-species: guardoni (voyeurs), scambisti (wife-swappers), group-sex freaks, transsexuals, bisexuals — plus several other creatures yet to be classified by scientists.
Needless to say Dante’s Beach, which is named after the poet who died in Ravenna in 1321, has got a bit of a reputation and is very popular with a certain type of German and Swiss.
Even if we did not have five small children, and even if the nudists were just nudists, we would not be able to use the beach because we find the sight of other people’s naked bodies in a public place frankly obscene and disturbingly insane.
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