Just a short, approximately hour and a half, train ride from Prato and we are at the beach.

Viareggio is one of the largest beach towns in Tuscany. It’s like no beach I have ever been.

The breezes from the blue vastness of the Liguirian Sea, sand pedicuring my toes and the white marble topped mountains lacing the landscape.

I felt like we were inside a postcard.

Most of the beach here is privately owned. You can walk the shore and swim for free. If you want to lounge under one of the hundreds of umbrellas you need to buy a pass from your hotel or one of the clubs. Prices seemed to very. Our hotel quoted us 30 euro for a day. We weren’t sure what that included.

We didn’t bring our suits so we were satisfied with hugging the tide line letting the waves splash us. We walked down to this pier where you could get a great view of the coast, have a leisurely drink, and the snacks were complimentary. I had a compari with soda.

Later we felt obliged to sample some of the gifts from the sea.

Here we had linguini with mussels and gnocchi with crab meat.

I wish I had thought to keep a journal of all the wonderful meals we’ve had. Above was a mixed plater with scampi, octopus and shrimp. Below was a seafood “salad.”

Another thing we enjoyed about Viareggio was the Pineta di Ponente Park.

It was a nice relief from the hot sun and fun to get a taste of the the other thing Viagreggio is famous for, it’s annual Carnival.

The park is full of interesting characters and seems to be a place for all ages.

At the train station on our way back to Prato we got a to see some more of the paper mache’ heads from a past carneval. As Americans we thought one of these looked oddly familiar.