Jesolo is always on our radar, as it’s not too far from where we live in northern Istria. A couple of hours and a bit away, there’s an expansive beach – 15 kms – to be explored, making it one of the largest beach resorts in Italy, just behind Rimini. Beaches near us, on the Istrian peninsula, are largely rocky or pebbles, so we love an opportunity to get fine sand between our toes. I’ve been to Jesolo once before, many years ago as part of a school trip, and so wanted to revisit to see if it was still as I remembered. The beach is the definitely the one thing that has always remained in my memory – stretching as far as the eye could see, and even in winter, blue sky.
So, we took the opportunity to do a detour on a recent trip back from the airport in Venice. We’re usually rushing on these trips, either to collect people or get them back for a flight, so it was lovely to get off the motorway and take the more scenic route down to Jesolo. It’s definitely a “sea-side” resort and very, very different to much of the rest of Italy. It’s also definitely very family-friendly, with a fun fair and water park, but there’s also a real nostalgic charm to it. The beach is lined with hotels – some very upmarket and glitzy, some a little more on the down, but it’s all mostly quite low-level, with a few high-risers on the skyline, but nothing too offensive, and there is a bit of a feeling you’ve stepped back in time. Perhaps what me feel like this, are the huge photographs, which line parts of the beach, celebrating Jesolo in years gone by. And it was certainly glamorous…
You’d definitely not be lost for things to do in Jesolo – there are restaurants offering an abundance of cuisines, shopping opportunities aplenty, from cheap beach accessory shops to high end, high name boutiques. And although we visited at the end of August, so the season was coming to an end, it was evident that the beach offers many activities for the sporty and for children. But, if all you want to do is soak up the sun on a lounger, Jesolo is pretty much the perfect destination, with its colour coded and regimented rows of sunbeds, facing out to the Adriatic.
I’m not sure that Jesolo is where we’d go for a two week holiday, but for a quick stop-over, in an Italian resort offering a fine sandy beach, I think we might we might pop over a couple more times, before we start off on our new adventure, away from Italy.