Alassio

This is the Chile of beach resort towns: the town is so long and thin that everything feels weirdly stretched out. The beaches look pretty decent, though I'm not much of a beach person -- I prefer anchoring off of rocky areas and looking around with a mask and snorkel, as opposed to lounging on sand. But if you like lounging on sand, Alassio has plenty of nice areas.

Every beach section has its own rescue people

 One odd thing about Italy is that the beaches are sectioned off and handed over to private enterprises. You have to pay someone and rent a deckchair (aka chaise longue) to get access to the sea. In Spain and France, the beaches are considered public property and you can practically walk to any part of the country as long as you walk on sand. Not so in Italy; there are fences between these cordoned off beach sections. It reminded me of Neil Stephenson's burb-claves of the cypherpunk post-future -- every beach section has a different look and feel to it.

Restaurant on the beach, on a windy day with high waves. Everyone was remarkably cool, even
when big waves crashed and swept under their feet.

The town is famous for something called "baci," which is the tasty bastard child of a macaroon and a cookie.

The 2km long town is full of little snack stores. I thought this was the best one.

Someone who is so proud of her product has to be selling the best of its kind, which she was.

The big attraction in Alassio is the "muretto," a wall where all the famous people who have visited the town have left their signatures. Not knowing much about Italian celebrities, I recognized only the following few visitors.

Woody Allen, pre-scandal and distinctly funnier at the time

Hemingway

Louis Armstrong next to a Hungarian goalkeeper

Ok, the other famous thing about the town is the Miss Muretto Beauty Pageant. It's in August and I visited in July.

I checked up on Fulvia Rinaldi, Miss Muretto 1961, to see what she had done since winning the pageant back in the day. She was still alive as of 2003 and served as a judge for Miss Muretto at the the pageant's 50th anniversary.

The devil must have dropped by, but he's not here anymore.

Had a nice moonrise at the end of the night, but the moon looks so much smaller in pictures than it appears when you look at it in person.