Santa Fortunata campsite beach

Q. When is a beach not a beach?

A.  When it doesn’t have either a sea-shore or lake–shore covered in pebbles or sand.  Unless of course you’re in Italy where the Concise Oxford Dictionary definition has not yet penetrated.

To reach the cliff-hugging Santa Fortunata campsite ‘beach’ requires ice-cool nerves (tricky in 40 degree heat) and well-toned calf muscles.  Reaching the bottom you are rewarded with a slab of dark rock approximately 40 metres wide by 10 metres deep.  Not a grain of sand or hint of a pebble in sight so no need to pack your beach umbrella or wind break although several fissures could just about accommodate a windmill.

For first timers, the experience is disorientating.  Having slogged down 150 steps (Issy, 13, counted them) in a 1:2 gradient you are hardly disposed to turn round just because there’s no sand or pebbles.  And what is a beach anyway if not a means to enter the sea for a swim or a snorkel?  Judging by the incredulity on the faces of later arrivals, we weren’t alone in our initial disappointment.  But then something miraculous happened.  Or perhaps it was just an inevitable consequence of having no sand to model.  Either way, the girls wanted to go snorkelling.  Molly, 11, took the lead but immediately ran into considerable difficulty with her flippers.  Either her feet had grown 6 sizes in two months or the flippers had wilted in the heat.  I guess Cindie’s ugly step sisters drew no such conclusions when faced with the glass slipper but they would surely have recognised the intense concentration beads glistening on Moll’s face.  The inevitable conclusion was that these were in fact Will’s, 5, flippers and that they’d made their way into Moll’s snorkel bag by accident and that Moll’s were back up the cliff face still in the car roof box.

The roman god of miracles struck for a second time as Vick, remembering we needed some food for later, volunteered to play mountain goat.  Meanwhile Will found a spot on a double rock slab and settled down to 3 hours non-stop DS gaming.

Getting into the water on the left side of the ‘beach’ required a technically hazardous launch from the rocks.  Only later did we discover that there was a custom built walkway and steps on the right side of the ‘beach’.  Never one to shirk a higher difficulty tariff, I used a combination of feet first lotus position, Papillon’s theory of seven waves and a fixed grin for the kids to show them that a left entry could in fact be achieved without getting hurt.  Scraping my elbow on the way in was not an option.  I did not want to present a tasty morsel for Italy’s resident or holidaying shark population.  And then once in, you really are in the beautiful Mediterranean.  Salty, warm and teeming with blue fish about the size of your hand.  Wonderful!   Refreshing.  This is the life.  Who said this wasn’t a beach?  What does the Concise Oxford Dictionary know anyway?

And when Vick returns with the right flippers and masks, we can’t get the girls out of the water.  Shrieking with delight.  Remembering their sub-aqua training drills and hand signals from Horfield pool.  Splashing to the left and right watching the fish, who remain very sensibly just out of reach.  And all this in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius looking majestically over the Bay of Naples.

“Dad?  If it erupted now, would we get covered?”

“Yep, no doubt about it Moll.”  But what a lovely beach to get covered on.