It is 95% traditional and family friendly and 5% naturist.
Going to Italy is always a good thing, Venice is unique in the world, and relaxing on the beach is always a pleasure.
Put it all together and you get Alberoni Beach.
We’ve been going to the Venice Biennale for almost a decade now and we always try to discover something new about the city, something off the beaten track.
On our way back from Venice, we’ve stopped several times to swim in the sea near Jesolo, and we thought, what if we went to a beach in Venice itself?
Are there any beaches in Venice?
Yes, actually quite a few, almost all of them on the Lido Island. We chose the Alberoni beach because it looked special. It is at the very end of the island, surrounded by dunes and protected flora and fauna.
To get to Lido Island we took a vaporetto (water bus), changing outside the harbour for bus number 1, which goes to the southern end of the island. It was not clear where to get off, but the driver helped.
After a few minutes walk (we just followed the locals carrying their bathing gear) we arrived at the entrance.
Entrance is free, but we hired a beach umbrella and two sun loungers (25 EUR for the day).
Alberoni beach is like many Italian beaches, with a cozy bar and a decent restaurant, toilets, showers, a changing room, lifeguard, etc.
At the same time, it is less crowded than the “mainstream” Lido beaches, mostly visited by locals, and there is a certain feeling of remoteness and exclusivity in the air.
It is a sandy beach, so you can walk into the water for about 60-80 metres, after which it starts to get deeper. For some reason there were not too many people in the water, even though it was quite warm. Instead, people were just relaxing and sunbathing.
The “official” beach has a relatively short waterfront, but the sandy strip stretches for at least 1 kilometre, with people lying in makeshift tents, playing with dogs or just chilling on the shore.
According to the guidebook it is a naturist/nude/clothes optional beach, but we only saw a 50 metre section, quite far from the official beach, where some people were naked in a discreet way. So it is not a nudist paradise.
At the end of the day, in the late afternoon, we randomly walked back to the bus stop, but to our surprise there was a bus parked near the entrance, and the locals were confidently getting on. So we did, because on this long, thin island there is nowhere to go but north.
We still don’t know what kind of bus it was, but it stopped at the vaporetto station.
