At an Italian beach club, the distance between one umbrella and the next can be measured in meters. The distance between the first row and the fifth is better measured in years.
The best positions—the ones nearest the water, where the breeze is stronger and the view unobstructed—rarely go to whoever arrives first. They belong to families who have returned to the same patch of sand for decades, renewing their places each summer. To move forward, one waits for somebody else to leave. Somebody almost never does.
