A few days after my first visit and I returned to Santa Margherita, having caught a glimpse on the bus of a paradisiacal beach which I decided I had to visit. Its name is Paraggi and it is a place where many famous Italians, including Berlusconi, have grand holiday homes looking down on the clear, blue water and sandy beaches. Armed with beach towel, Ian McEwan's Atonement (because you can't get much more British) and a little Italian picnic of pizza and arrancini, I spent the day in Paraggi squeezed amongst the rabble of the public beach - which is unfortunately only a thin strip of sand surrounded by the mostly empty €40-a-sunbed private beaches.
The beach is tucked into a little bay, so the water is completely calm and so clear and shallow that you can swim far from the beach into relative tranquility and just float along, which is exactly what I spent most of the day doing.
You could say that Paraggi has become a money-making business, rather than the open, welcome beach that it should be. This, I think, is all down to keeping it exclusive and secluded, for it is so beautiful that people don't want to share it, they want it all for themselves and are willing to pay large amounts of money to keep it that way. I personally would like to see the public beach expanded so that more people can appreciate Paraggi's beauty, without being two centimetres away from the next person also trying to do so...
Yet there is something wonderful about the almost emerald coloured water and the fact that the beach is surrounded by trees and greenery. It gives Paraggi a uniqueness that I won't be able to forget anytime soon.
