The villeggiatura survives on the Albenga plain

An opinion essay in the Guardian this week turns to the Albenga plain, on the Riviera di Ponente, as a living monument to Italy's villeggiatura — the month-long August break. The author, Jamie Mackay, describes the area as a place where families still gather under eucalyptus trees, play cards and nap through the afternoon heat, a corner of the coast that has resisted the boutique lidos that now line much of the Ligurian shore.

The essay traces the ritual's roots to the Renaissance, when nobles retreated to countryside villas, and its transformation in the 1960s into a mass working-class right, won by powerful trade unions and supported by firms like Fiat and Olivetti, which shut down for August and funded seaside colonies for workers' children.

For this bureau, the piece touches a familiar local truth: the Riviera di Ponente, and the Albenga plain in particular, remains a place where the old rhythms of the summer pause persist, even as the surrounding coast shifts toward higher-end tourism. The essay is a commentary, not a news report, but its portrait of the region's character is recognisable.

Mackay's argument is that Italy's August shutdown was not a natural cultural quirk but a political achievement, secured when unions were strong and productivity was high. He contrasts that era with the present, suggesting the long break is a model worth defending in an overworked age. The essay does not report any new event, but it frames the Albenga plain as a case study in how a holiday habit became a social institution.

The plain's development, as the essay notes, was tied to postwar industrialisation: workers from Turin and Milan sought affordable refuge by the sea, and the state helped with low-cost train tickets and budget holiday programmes. That history is visible today in the campsites and bungalows that still dot the area, a counterpoint to the glitzier resorts nearby.

The Guardian piece offers no data on current visitor numbers or economic impact, and it would be wrong to infer any from it. What it does is put a familiar Ligurian landscape in a broader political frame, one that resonates with the region's own debates about tourism, housing and the cost of the coast.