Wind, sun and sea
Among the beaches of the Costa degli Etruschi, south of Livorno, the Marina di Bibbona Beach is very popular and in the summer it is also very busy with a large number of bathers, tourists and families. But if you want to live the best beauty of the sea and the surrounding environment in its most natural and wild expression, you should choose the zones that are located south of the center of the town, outside the occupied areas from equipped beaches.
Here, although it isn't an official naturist beach such as the Nido dell'Aquila in San Vincenzo, naturism and being naked to the sea are tolerated for over thirty years. After the first failed attempt (we could not find the right direction to get to the naturist beach and we were "lost" in the typically August's crowd), we went back with precise and valuable information provided to us by our innkeeper, the owner of the Locanda di Terramare where we stay.
At the entrance of Marina di Bibbona, just three hundred meters after the first roundabout, turn left in the direction of the two campgrounds located at south: the Gineprino Camping and Camping del Forte. The road ends at a parking fee, but if you do not want to pay, and if you find a free place, you can leave your car along the street. Today is Sunday so free parking it is impossible, unfortunately, so we enter the parking and feed the parking meter with all our coins so getting a ticket that allows us a parking of about 4 hours. We think it is more than enough, but in any case we will ensure that they are sufficient
From the car park we take the long sandy path, winding among the trees of the pine forest, leading to the sea. Arrived at the sea, we realize that we are already in free beach area (though still textile) very busy (given the large amount of dogs, most likely it is a dog-beach) and then we head to the left, to the south, leaving the crowd behind. We walk for about twenty minutes, we pass on our left a large depression which lies between the sand dunes, a kind of dry lake or something like that, and finally we see the first naturists. We walk a few dozen meters and then, having found the ideal location, we settle down.
This beach seems wider than the Nido dell'Aquila's beach, at first glance you would say several more meters of space between the dunes and the sea. The sand also seems different, finer but also a clearer coloration. Overall it looks less artificial, it seems much more wild and less populated. Probably this is due to the fact that the path we have walked to access the beach is the last possible access from the street. Going down the coast to the south, several kilometers are not other external access and so the only way to reach those areas it is to walk far on the shoreline.
The typology of visitors to this beach is quite different. Probably the lack of official recognition or any territorial monitoring of naturist associations, makes that we are witness to some strange situations, or at least not fully consistent with the true spirit of naturism. It is clear that many beach goers are pure and naturists, nudist of habit, mostly couples, of all ages. But there are others who remain in costume and still others, especially single men, who walk back and forth in the dunes behind us. An important and useful advice of our innkeepers, we of course have followed, was to position ourselves close enough to the sea, away from the dunes, in order to stay more relaxed thus avoiding possible "misunderstandings" that in some cases could be unpleasant.
ATTENTION: this is not a beach officially authorized to naturism even if, according to the residents, it is more than 30 years that naturism here has always been tolerated. But it is recent news that the municipality (Castagneto Carducci) has implemented important deterrent practices accentuating the controls, especially to counter the phenomenon of commercial abusiveness, but still heavily penalizing "acts contrary to public decency" even those found to practice naturism in this stretch of coast.