Venice - Lido (Island)

In previous centuries for Venetians the Lido only represented a trip into the country. Subsequently a fashionable resort, today it is a Mecca for tourists.

The island is 12km/7.5mi long, almost half of which is a beach of fine smooth sand. Apart from the usual bathing (each section of the beach belongs to one or several hotels), there are facilities for golf, tennis, horse-riding and clay-pigeon shooting, as well as places of entertainment. In August and September every year the Lido is the venue for the International Film Festival (in the Palazzo del Cinema).

The main architectural feature is the massive fin de siècle hotels (the hotel Des Bains and its beach was the setting for Thomas Mann's novel "Death in Venice")