Viareggio, Tuscany, Italy

Viareggio, Tuscany, Italy

Viareggio, Tuscany Italy

This massively popular sun-and-sand resort is as well-known for its flamboyant Mardi Gras Carnevale, second only to Venice for party spirit, as for its dishevelled line-up of once-grand art-nouveau facades along its seafront, which hark back to the town's 1920s and '30s heyday. Viareggio's huge golden-sand beachfront is chock-a-block with cafes, climbing frames and other children's amusements and, bar the short public stretch opposite the fountain-studded Piazza Mazzini, is divided into stabilimenti (individual plots where you can rent cabins, umbrellas, loungers etc). Only a few of the waterfront buildings maintain the ornate stylishness of the 1920s and '30s, notably Puccini's favourite cafe, the 1929 Gran Caffè Margherita and the neighbouring wooden Chalet Martini (1899).