Closed for Winter

Most people think of Riccione in summer. I had always wanted to see it in winter.

By then, the children’s voices have been gone for months. So has the smell of sunscreen on warm skin. The beach clubs are locked. A brightly coloured playground boat sits empty beside the cabins, waiting for children who will not return until the weather changes.

Now and then, a dog walker crosses the sand, shoulders drawn against the wind. Then the beach is quiet again.

Without the crowds, my eye follows different things: the rhythm of the cabin roofs, alternating colours of closed doors, lines of paving tiles leading towards the sea. Blue, pink, yellow against a grey sky. The familiar seaside becomes somewhere else—seemingly abandoned, almost abstract. I find it even more beautiful this way.