LIVING ITALIA!

thecoast Homes on

Who can resist the sparkling seaside? Certainly not Italians, nor foreign property buyers. Luckily, Italy has plenty of it – and in such variety. Fleur Kinsongoes beachcombing for bargains...

As a country, Italy could have been designed with the seaside in mind. A long, thin peninsula peppered with offshore islands, the Italy appears to be striving for maximum contact with the sea. An incredible 7,500 kilometres of coastline wiggles and loops around the country – a distance greater than a straight line drawn between London and Bombay. This long, long expanse contains fabulous physical variety – from honeyed sweeps of sandy beach to plunging cliffs, reedy river deltas and rocky mini-peninsulas, to grain-growing plains to steep seaside hills. There’s also variety in the style and level of development on offer, with chic, teeming resorts pitched alongside sleepy backwaters, and venerable port cities nestling beside family friendly strands. Essentially, there’s something for every taste – and all of it washed in reliable Mediterranean sunshine. Apart from coastline, what Italy also has in abundance is high ground. 75 per cent of the country is mountainous, and much of the remaining 25 per cent is hilly. As is generally true all over the world, people who live in the mountains tend to be slightly different from people who settle on the coast. Dignified and courteous, mountain people often cling to traditions and can be slow to experience or

implement change – primarily because their difficult landscape sees few change-bringing passers-through. Coastal dwellers, on the other hand, have always had more exposure to the world beyond their country’s borders, and are accustomed to overseas arrivals. Buy a property on Italy’s coast and you’ll fit seamlessly into the local picture, right from the start. Of course, Italians are friendly everywhere, but you’re less likely to experience anything akin to loneliness on the coast than out in the countryside. There are more people here, and in the summer especially, they’re more likely to all be in holiday mood. Buying a property anywhere on the coast in Italy is a rather different prospect from buying one in certain other parts of the Mediterranean. In some regions of Spain or Portugal, for example, you can find yourself very much part of the ex-pat throng – immersed in your own culture, just shone upon by a different sun. Anywhere on the Italian coast, however, even in its most visited and international stretches, you’ll have constant involvement in an undiluted Italian way of doing things – café culture, evening passegiata, gorgeous clothes, humming nightlife, stunning food and architecture. Buyers on the Italian seaside aren’t just buying into sea and sunshine. A vibrant, classy culture always comes with the package.

All photography © ENIT

Close-knit hillside living in Ostuni, Puglia.

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36 ITALIA! June 2006