The Rite of Summer
Summer. The Adriatic Riviera.
What do these two elements call to mind? Perhaps a crowded beach, cries of children playing, the smell of sunscreen, the umbrellas squeezed together, and your shade that's never enough because it's falling on your neighbor's sunbed.
Now, forget all this, put it aside for a moment. For there are 24 hours in a day, and the beach does not disappear when you pick up your bag and damp bathing suit and go to dinner or dancing or for a walk into town.
When the crowd leaves and the umbrellas get closed, a new scene takes place: a kaleidoscope of fabric and colors, of cloth dancing in the wind, only the shrieks of seagulls and the splashing of waves in the background.
It is a celebration of summer: a rite fleeting and eternal that happens every night when sunlight falters, never the same, until the season ends. Until the following year, that is.
View gallery
