A new hotel in Greece has done the logical thing of numbering its sun loungers by the room to avoid a battle of the towels this summer. Not exactly rocket science; you wonder why more hotels don't bother.
The Asterias Suites in Halkidiki allots two sun loungers per suite, but however cunning this plan may sound, this won't be the end of the annual sun-lounger war.
Even if you have two sun loungers allotted to your room there is going to be the inevitable crack-of-dawn battle for the best position. If you have young kids, the prime spot is right on the shoreline, rather than four rows back by the bar, so you can keep watch while the toddlers paddle. And then there's the lounger draggers who scrape around all day hogging the best spots in or out of the shade. You might be parked next to the sunshade, but the couple two down are resting in your shade (with no chance of budging).
No discussion on sun loungers would be complete without a reference to the Germans, but I would like to point out that the Italians have more cheek than the Teutonic race when it comes to blagging the best spots. A couple of years ago, I went on holiday with my German husband and in-laws to Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt and stayed in a hotel which didn't have enough sun loungers on the small beach for the hotel guests. Each day one of our party diligently raced down to the beach at 7am and blagged four beds in a prime spot - leaving towels, bonkbusters, buckets and spades sprinkled on top to ensure our position. Surely anybody who can be bothered to get up at sunrise on what is supposed to be their restful holiday to reserve sun loungers deserves a sun lounger?
But the Germans and English were the minority in this hotel; and we soon learnt that the Italians, who made up the biggest numbers, displayed no sense of etiquette in the contest. They swaggered down to the beach at noon in their Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses with their bronzed chests puffed out (by which time we were at lunch) chucked our stuff off and plonked themselves down instead. The other half of the Italian guests either bribed or flirted their way onto the sun loungers instead. So at 7am, the beach boys rushed around shaking out new towels where needed and picking up tips from the Italians when they later arrived. As the week went on the minority Germans retreated to the far end of the beach, huddled on the worst stony bits, moaning to each other about the prolo (rude/ lowlife) Italians.
There is a lot of pot calling kettle black in the row that has broken out between the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Schröder has cancelled his summer holiday to Italy after Berlusconi refused to apologise for likening a German MEP to a Nazi camp commandant. The matter was made worse by the Italian Tourism Minister Stefano Stefani branding Germans 'super-nationalistic blondes with arrogance'.
Watch the battle of the sun loungers for a day anywhere on the Med this summer and see from which direction the arrogance comes.
