The best place you’ve never even heard of...
When I mention Viareggio to people, the response is generally the same: ‘Where?’ Nobody ever seems to have heard of it which, I have to confess, I hadn’t either until my husband and I pitched up there in July 2013.
We were staying in Florence for a week, in a great apartment right in the city centre, but it was so hot – 42 degrees for a few days in a row – that we decided we needed to escape the oppressive heat of the city for at least a day. When you are having to spend every afternoon holed up in your Florence apartment with the air conditioning going full blast, you know it’s time to retreat for a while.
So where could we get to on the coast relatively easily, we wondered, and by train? We had a look at a map, spotted Viareggio, looked up the Trenitalia website, and before we knew it we were heading for the coastal town in the expectation of less intense heat coupled with the advantage of a bit of a sea breeze.
It was a pleasant train journey – via the lovely Tuscan city of Lucca – and before we knew it we were walking out of the station in Viareggio and heading for the main part of the town.
Known as the ‘Pearl of the Tyrrhenian Sea’, Viareggio was originally the port for nearby Lucca but by the time the late 19th century had come around it had established itself as a town in its own right.
We loved it. It’s a place which has the feel of a ‘real’ town – there are ordinary streets with ordinary shops on the way from the station to the seafront, and there’s a great daily market, bustling with locals and tourists alike.
The most striking feature of the town is actually two-fold – the 3km long wide roadway (known as La Passeggiata) that runs behind the beach, and the buildings that front on to it on both sides of that road. Many of these are hotels and what is particularly striking about them – and many of the other buildings – is that they are built in the Liberty, or Art Deco, style. They are an absolute treat for the eyes.
Viareggio, when we visited that July, had the feel of a place where the Italians like to holiday. With an old-world feel to it, you could imagine Sophia Loren or Claudia Cardinale strolling along the front, the picture of 1950s Italian elegance and glamour.
The town certainly wasn’t overrun five years ago with British or Irish tourists. Even when we ate out that night (yes, we decided, on impulse, to stay overnight) we heard no English spoken around us on the terrace of a restaurant on the Passeggiata.
So why did we decide to stay overnight? Because we had walked all afternoon in the heat (not quite Florentine levels, but still hot), right along the front and then on past the marina in the direction of the long, sandy public beach. A good deal of the beach area in the town itself is privately owned by the various hotels but it continues way beyond there and becomes a public facility. After a paddle there and a stroll along the sands we headed back to the town, intending to have a coffee or a glass of wine before catching the train back to Florence.
‘Remind me why we’re going back to the Florence furnace tonight?’ my husband Gerry asked as we sat at an outdoor cafe sipping a glass of chilled wine in the late afternoon sunshine. Since there was actually no real answer to that question we decided there and then to stay – if we could find a room for the night.
Which is how we ended up in the Liberty Hotel, a slightly faded, three-star job right on the Paseggiata. I can’t remember what we paid for a night for bed and breakfast but I can recall that we were both surprised at how reasonable it was, considering that it was the last week of July. Our room was sparsely enough furnished but huge, and spotlessly clean. And we had a view right out over that famous street. We dangled out of the window for ages watching all the early evening comings and goings. And then out we went to join the crowd.
Earlier in the day, we had discovered a terrific fish restaurant in the middle of the marketplace. Restaurant isn’t quite the right word – more a stall with notions. They were close to closing up when we found it and were kind enough to hang on and serve us. It’s all paper plates and plastic cutlery and you eat at trestle type tables outside and clear your debris into the nearest bin when you’ve finished but we both agreed that it was some of the best fish and chips we had ever eaten.
I was thinking about Viareggio over the past few days because a little card advertising the Liberty Hotel fell out of a book that I lifted down from one of my bookshelves at home. It reminded me that some of the best holiday experiences are the ones that aren’t planned. And that some of the best places that you ever visit are the ones that, until you get there, you’ve never even heard of.