this is not design related and i apoligize. i have also searched the forums but havent found much. im asking you all because i have nobody else to ask. ive done as much research as possible but the most i can find as to how the surf is in italy is “not consistent”, which can mean several things.
what i want to know is, how consistent is the surf in italy in comparison to the surf on the east coast of the u s of a? i live on the east coast sometimes, and the surf is definetly VERY inconsistent.
i dont know if i will be much of a help but i did see the drive through europe movie. with kelly, pat, benji and the other guys. they looked like they scored some decent surf, i wouldnt call it that much better then what we get on the east coast but it wasnt bad. there is some perfection to be found over there.
but you need a big atlantic storm that moves over france really quickly to get some swell.
theres probably some other people in here with better answers.
i have a feeling the answer im gonna get is that its actually worse then the east coast, in which case shits gonna hit the fan. i cant go to a place where the surf is worse then here. thats plain redic.
I have several friends who used to surf in Corsica and Sardinia…born there…
Quality can be very high, size and consistency very low.
You understand Med is very small N to S, so whatever storms coming thru have to be aligned perfectly, and have to coincide with calm or offshore breezes, for clean conditions.
Most consistent surf in the Med is Israel, unfortunately it’s usually onshore winds and around thigh high.
Summers in Italy, go windsurfing, surfsailing, kitesurfing to increase H2O time.
I lived 7 years in Italy. Nowadays, whenever the surf is really bad I will console myself by saying, “This would be a good day for Viareggio.” Italy is small, inconsistant and when it’s on it’s short period wind swell,. The only really quality surf might be on Sardegna or occasionally the Riviera. I din’t live in the other areas. don’t go to Italy to surf. Go to soak up culture and maybe go skiing.
Also, the name’s Guido not guedo and referring to Italy as the land of the mob is a pretty insulting thing to say. I won’t tell i miei amici 'sta volta, ma sta attento! You wouldn’t want to wake up with your surfboard in bed with the fins chopped off.
I too am from Canada (west coast) and have been researching Italian surfing, hoping to move there for a year. I was under the impression that the surf in Italy was more consistent than one might expect.
The “surf scene” there seems to be a bit farther along than here in Canada; they’ve got more competitions and magazines/websites. I don’t think those comps and magazines are based on shitty waves. I’ve also seen plenty of picures of Italians ripping, and I think you need consistent surf to learn how to rip (although plenty of travel could work as a substitute, and France is just next door).
All in all, I think if one was to spend a season there and base their life around surfing (get an evening job so that you can surf whenever the swell comes up), they would probably score good surf more often than they would surfing just the weekends back home (which is all that I can currently manage). I’m going to try and keep close tabs on the Mediterranean bouys this winter to try and get a better sense of how many swell days/year Italy gets.
Sardegna definately seems to be the epicentre of Italian surfing, but I am also interested in Calabria’s potential. Calabria is in the south of Italy or “the toe of the boot”, and looks to have much more exposure to the Mediterannean than other parts of Italy. There’s a pretty sizeable piece of water between Calabria and Africa, with possibly enough fetch to provide clean swell other than wind-slop.
And as an aside, there’s something about going on a surf trip where you may not score that makes it so much more of an adventure. I say go for it flowinandboin.
A close friend of mine moved to Italy in our last year of HS in 1984. He actually was Italian, but grew up down here, folks in diplomatic corps, so he’s really moving back right.
anyhow, we bothered and bothered the the living shite out of him over it. Our circle of friends, back then we thought and Italian beach was about beautiful women (true), men in speedos (also true), and Campari.
Well back then, no email mind you - a few months after he splits Panama, we get an letter full of pics - the surf was actually pretty decent. Since then I’ve received a steady steam of photos and e-pics from him. And yup, seen pics of some breaks in Sardinia that have some size, great shape, and no one out.
I met his new Italian friends in Bali in 1990 - and they’re all pretty into it over there. Well travelled crew.
What’s funny to me is that they’re all pretty proud that Italy has decent surf, albeit infrequent.
We’re still in close contact - PM me if you want to get in touch with this guy. Hey, you can call him any epithet you want to as well - he’s got a great sense of humor.
You might want to checkout www.wannasurf.com - I was turned onto it here or surfermag. They have surf reports on some of the most tripped out places, in addition to real surf destination, like Greece, Denmark, etc. Tells you about consistency, type of break, and usually pics of the breaks.
I’m telling you…if you’re looking to surf, if surfing is your life, go to Hawaii, Central America, Portugal, Morocco…whatever. If you go to Italy with the specific objective of surfing, it’d be like going to Iceland to work on your tan. Sure there’ll be days on sunshine, but might not you be better off working on your tan in Brazil? Italy gets waves and of course Italians will be proud of the waves. It’s all relative- a good day in Viareggio would probably turn the average Californian towards the golf course. Also, waves in Italy ususally coincide with frigid winter (maybe not frigid for Canadians…it’s all relative).
Go to Italy for the food, the history, the women (I ended up marrying one) or, if you have a really good forecaster and a helicopter to get you to just the right spot at the right time, ok then youcan go for surf. But really, there are much, much better destinations for surf.
Hey flowin i supose the good thing about italian surf is it probably won’t be crowded but i strongly recomend taking up kitesurfing as a no surf windy alternative as you board time on the water will still be high. As will your jumps, regulary hit 30-40ft air off flat water!
Hey this is for me since i’m one of those very few Italians on swaylocks.
As the others said, don’t come here for surf, we’ve got plenty of others attractions, but bring a board with you, never know, sometimes we got waves, and autumn-winter is the best period, water is not colder than 13°C in january and air temp is almost the same or just a bit lower, rarely under 5°C.
Best places? Sardinia with non question, than the west coast, Liguria, Tuscany and Lazio… also beware, as llilibel03 said, don’t sleep at night… BwaHaHaaahhh
E’ un piacere sapere che c’e’ al meno un Italiano che segue questo sito. Di dove sei? Io ho vissuto a Firenze (ecco le gite a Viareggio), Milano (che tristezza) e Venezia (interessante, ma le onde del Lido lasciavano desiderare. Mi avevano offerto un lavoro a Venezia shaping and glassing tavole di windsurf, ma l’inverno Padaniano era troppo pesante per me. Non so te, ma io, in Italia sognavo viaggi in Portogallo e Biarritz. Comunque, coraggio, si mangia benessimo! Poi, quest’estate a California era peggio del Adriatico.
I was in Italy earlier this year (pictures at: www.pbase.com/bootslondon/ click on San Remo Surf). My buddy there warned me that there was “no surf in Italy”. If you look at the pictures, it’s obvious that overhead barrels is “no surf in Italy”… There are some spots where the locals have been taught the dickhead locals only mentality (Varazze). Verazze is a point break, so there’s only one break, and they’re protective of it. However, the other places we went to, like Levanto and San Remo were SUPER friendly, the locals were great guys, and all they could talk about was when Kelly Slater came through shooting the movie. The surf shop in San Remo (EasyRiders) is very cool, they rent boards and gear and are really friendly, even if their english is rough (and my Italian is worse). It went OFF for 4-5 days, then, calm like lake water. I hope you enjoy your time there. If there’s no surf, hiking around cinque terra is a nice alternative.
Wow llilibel03 il tuo italiano è migliore del mio! :o)
I’m from the sad city… eheh Milan, so i’m used to padania’s winter, cold foggy days, sometimes it’s so humid we can’t even use skateboards in our concrete skateparks! in any case sea is 2hours by car from here, so sometimes i pack up my things and at 5am i’m on the highway… or pic up my snowboard and snowshoes for some freerides on the alps, in Liguria the winter is mild and no fog at all, it’s amazing to see how the climate changes in a hundred kilometres.
I’ve shaped a couple of boards for me and some fins, i’ve just begun board number 3 and contemporarly i’m fixing up #2 cause it snapped last winter :-\ but i’m just a beginner nothing more.
Coraggio. At least you have all those beautiful women on vespas to look at. I couldn’t take the grey skies (I’m from Southern California). I ended up working in Varese. At least there it was above the fog.
Where do you go to surf? Drop me a line if you ever come to California.
Most consistent surf in the Med is Israel, unfortunately it’s usually onshore winds and around thigh high.
i’ve had some fun surf in Tel Aviv. unfortunately, the best surf was farther south in the Gaza Strip…which the IDF recently disengaged and the area is now under PA control. i won’t get started on the politics, but Gush Katif is supposedly a pretty fun wave that i’ll never get to surf…and i’m bummed.