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There are many ways in which you can divide up human beings meaningfully in two groups: NOT on the basis of whether they hear yanny or laurel or whether the colours on “the dress“ are black and blue or white and gold. 

But take for example holiday destinations: are you attracted to travel destinations because they are interesting …

"street in Germany with graffitied walls"

… or because they are beautiful?

"Dolomites mountain"

The answer to this question will actually tell you a lot about yourself. Do you perceive the world mainly through your intellect or through your senses, as a series of intriguing puzzles which may or may not yield an overall, coherent solution or as a symphony of sensations?

On which side of this divide people fall eventually comes down to the way in which they are wired. This is as inevitable as destiny can be. People may want to change the way in which they are experiencing life, but they cannot.

Which means that they should not try: the key to a happy life is to live it by accepting people as they are, and that includes ourselves.

Personally, I rely mainly on my intellect (the little there is) to navigate my way through the world. For many years, I had wished to be different: more sensual or sensuous, at least to have a little more balance in my life, but to no avail.

Over these years, I have dragged Mrs Easy Hiker – who sits on the opposite side of the fence from me – to many a place the charms of which she was unable to see.

To her, these were probably just shabby neighbourhoods – whereas I quickly tire of beauty unless it can sustain my interest. Which it cannot, generally, because that is not what beauty is designed to deliver.

Pescara and Viareggio?

If you want to know, by the way, on what side of the divide you yourself are falling, there is an easy way to find out. Do you find you keep coming back to the same travel destinations or do you always pick a new one?

If you find you are prioritizing change and variety, you are leaning towards interesting destinations, because the beautiful always stays beautiful, while interest may wane.

Which brings me to the two Italian towns that book-ended our recent short trip to central Italy. Both the Adriatic town of Pescara and Viareggio near Florence target visitors who – I think this is fair to say – care neither for visual nor intellectual stimulation.

Their whole raison d’etre is to provide a convenient seaside holiday, and that’s pretty much that.

But whereas beauty is nearly always the product of purposeful design, be it artistic or evolutionary, interest can emerge from the mundane. You may not find a fast food meal delicious, but it is easy to think of a highly interesting article about it.

Pescara, consequently, offers few visual charms …

"Pescara - Pescara or Viareggio"

… and its regimented rows of uniformly coloured parasols lend the place a vaguely dystopian air: Blade Runner goes on holiday.

"beach in Pescara - Pescara and Viareggio"

Yet, there is an undeniable buzz around Pescara – a buzz of the type that is produced whenever a large number of young people congregate to enjoy themselves.

It’s a little like attending a rock concert: after a while, whether or not you are having fun is only indirectly connected to the quality of the acts. At all the best live rock events, nobody cares if the music is any good.

It is also important to note that not all of Pescara is an entertainment zone: in fact, it is the very contrast between the beach strip of holiday resorts and the working town that gives the place its special vibe.

"harbour in Pescara - Pescara or Viareggio"

Pescara has a soul, and I would much rather spend my time here than in a piece of Disneyland Italy, one of those superficially prettified villages full of souvenir shops and restaurants that (grumpily) serve deep-frozen ready-made meals.

At least, in Pescara, it is not only the tills that are alive.

"street lined with restaurants - Pescara and Viareggio"

The fellow resort town of Viareggio, located approx. 200 km to the northwest from Pescara, had its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s.

"young people in Viareggio"

You can still meet young families on the beach promenade, even young people old enough to have come here on their own, but the tone is undeniably set by pensioners who have come here to search for the temps perdu of their youth.

The time when they came here with their children. Or when they were young themselves. It is fanciful to imagine that some of those elderly visitors have met each other here?

"Viareggion boardwalk - Pescara and Viareggio"

And will Pescara, 50 years from now, take on a similar patina, while the young people – whose parents may, as you are reading this, be about meet each other on a round of beach volleyball – spend their holiday time somewhere else, on the moons of Jupiter perhaps?

"Beach in Viareggio - Pescara or Viareggio"

When we were inquiring about the train schedules for Pescara and Viareggion, one hour after our plane’s arrival, we met fellow plane passengers who were about to take the first train out of town. They were, we thought, probably going to the Abruzzi, based on the outfits they were wearing: off to see something beautiful.

Equally, many people change trains at Viareggio on their way from Cinque Terre to the glories of Tuscany, Florence and Siena, without ever stepping outside the station.

There is so single way of choosing your travel destinations, admittedly, and one way of choosing is not inherently superior to the other, but I cannot help feeling that these people are missing out on something.

Pescara and Viareggio – interesting but not beautiful? Do you agree?

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