Packed beach, Rimini, Italy

And this is what everyone apparently comes to Rimini for: beaches that I suppose are nice, but that I would have a hard time enjoying since they are so utterly and completely packed with people. Somewhere down at the end of that apparently endless line of umbrellas is the ocean.

I grew up mostly in Maine, where even on beautiful hot summer days you could just walk down a little farther to find big swaths of open empty beach. To me, that has defined the experience of beaches, and my feeling about a place like the Rimini beach (or other similar that I have seen elsewhere) is one of profound claustrophobia.