Up there on the Antrim coast on the vast dunes at White Park Bay, we did not know how lucky we were. Just try the beach at Milano Marittima for a revealing comparison.
The beach itself would be little more than 30 metres wide, from the hotel and apartment-lined seafront to the briney itself. Those 30 metres, however, are densely inhabited. Look to starboard and then look to port and the view is the same - umbrellas, all of similar size but of different colours and patterns, blocking every inch of the would-be sand-castle builder's pitch.
As for the sea, on an overcast morning, its already less than inviting looks are not helped by the many cargo boats plying backwards and forwards on the horizon. Worse still, for those intrepid few swimmers who venture in, there comes the shocking discovery that they have to wade halfway to Croatia before the water gets over their chest.
We are, of course, talking about the Adriatic. For reasons related to the fact that the modern single-child parent has a pathological tendency to convert his/herself into a butler-cum-chauffeur-cum-personal slave, we are this week writing to you from Milano Marittima, just up the Adriatic coast from Rimini. While the pride and joy of the family is engaged in high-level equestrian endeavours, paterfamilias has been joining the burgeoning ranks of abused parent labourers, chasing everything from medical certificates and prescription forms to runaway ponies.
At first glance, Italy's answer to Blackpool might not sound too inviting. Rimini and the surrounding area have a reputation for catering either for German tourists or for Milanesi unable to afford more fashionable resorts such as the Italian Riviera, Sardinia, Sicily or the Aeolian Isles.
Hotels here are almost all "three star", while you pay extra for items such as use of the TV. At £40 per night for a double room (inclusive of breakfast and evening meal), however, you get value for money. (Single rooms in central Rome at almost any time cost twice as much.)
Even though the area caters for mass tourism, it nonetheless remains both pleasantly relaxed and well organised. If the legendary shallow wastes of the Adriatic do not make for a great sea to swim in, no problem - build a glamorous swimming pool, as many hotels have.
So, too, if there are those who believe that a beach is a place where you go to sun-toast belly or bottom up, restricting one's movements only to necessary interventions such as the recovery of a sandwich momentarily snaffled by a confused and all too close neighbour, then this is the place. There are parts of the coast along here where the infamous deck chair will automatically self-assemble upon insertion of the necessary coins. No more embarrassing scenes, not to mention pinched fingers.
In truth, though, many of the aforementioned German tourists seem to be an active lot. Beach buggies, scooters and bicycles, all for hire, add to an earnest holiday atmosphere that allows no room for self-irony. Looking out my hotel window at six this morning (after a hot, sleepless night), I discovered more of our senior EU partners out jogging around the park.
Up the road from here is a place called Cervia, once favoured by the Romans but then abandoned because of malaria. In more recent times (17th century), Cervia and surrounds experienced renewed prosperity when, with malaria contained, the production of sea salt became a lucrative business.
Sea salt, however, is as nothing compared with the area's most recent revival, namely mass tourism, as underlined by the many high-rise hotels along the coast.
It should be honky-tonk but it isn't. Travelling into Emilia Romagna this week, there was time to admire the fields of long saved hay, sweet smelling lavender and brilliant yellow sunflowers. The great summer season on the Adriatic has begun.