Italia 2017-Day 7-Cala Violina

I think we were all ready for a break from walking and sight seeing at this point. Honestly, our trip thus far couldn't have been better. The kids were fantastic travelers, the weather which was supposed to be rainy most of the trip ended up being absolutely beautiful, the places we stayed were amazing, and the van was the best way to travel with the kids. To plan a beach day in October seemed unrealistic but we knew we would need a break and the beach would be just the thing. It turned out to be heavenly.

While planning our trip we wanted to stay near Piombino after Rome and came across this hidden gem, Cala Violina. It's supposedly one of the best beaches in Northern Italy. We were excited to check it out. We left Rome and headed north to the coast for a beach day. As we got closer the kids begged us to stop at McDonald's for an early lunch. Ironic because we never eat McDonald's back at home so I guess that tells you the struggle we had with food. That was one of my concerns, the food. American Italian and Italian Italian are 2 different things. We thought there was no way there would be a McDonald's in this tiny town but the kids kept seeing signs. Sure enough off the freeway was the Golden Arches. We stopped and ate and laughed at the irony that we would find ourselves in Italy at McDonalds.

We got to the beach parking area after taking a few wrong turns and walked about half a mile to get to the beach. It's secluded and off the beaten path so we were surprised to see so many people there especially being October. We just picked a spot as close to the water as possible to avoid the towel-less changing going on behind us. ;) I was just glad people were wearing bathing suits but it must be a European thing to have a swimming suit and a bathing suit so you wear one while swimming in the water and one to sit and sunbathe on the beach? Thankfully the kids didn't notice. They were too busy having fun playing in the sand and the water. We stayed the entire afternoon and left after sunset. It was a fantastic, relaxing day at the beach!