The sea is impossible for people with disabilities. The stories of Laura, Ginevra, and Valeria: "Beaches with facilities only on paper and blocked ramps."

In Italy, you say "summer" and think of the sea . A direct, almost obvious connection. For many people with disabilities , however, the beach is still an obstacle course of sinking sand, blocked ramps, and services that exist on paper but don't actually work. The stories of Laura G. , Valeria S. , and Ginevra C.— three different voices, each with their own area of the country, conditions, and needs—paint a clear picture: seaside inclusion is a question of rights . And today, those rights are too often disregarded.

Laura is the mother of Giovanni , born in 1987 with cerebral palsy that resulted in spastic tetraparesis . “According to the best specialists, my son would never have even walked or spoken,” she says. Giovanni, however, has even learned to swim , and feels free in the water. A freedom that, however, weighs like a burden for two parents in their seventies. In the summer, the family, originally from Livorno , travels to Tirrenia “where there is sand,” but—says Laura— “none of the beaches on the coast are equipped with facilities.” Not even in their home town do the public beaches offer solutions. The result is a paradox: to go swimming, you have to knock on the door of private establishments, pay for access for a companion , and hope that architectural barriers don't turn the day into a test of strength. “It's not right that a family with disabilities has to turn to private establishments ,” insists Laura. “Equipped facilities exist, but too often they're not within everyone's reach .”

Valeria , mother of a girl with complex disabilities, speaks bitterly about the situation in Marina di Pisa . Her photograph is stark and depicts a single equipped beach , with access ramps transformed into parking lots for the inattentive and an idea of inclusion that is "only lip service." And when she tries to go to the beach with all her children , she comes up against another obstacle: the lack of help in August . "In the summer, I can't find anyone willing to help me with my disabled daughter , no matter how much I'm willing to pay. There are few beach resorts; if you report them, you get checks by the police, but you never see any concrete measures taken. When my daughter was little, we carried her in our arms , taking great risks because you can easily fall on stairs or uneven terrain. But now she's grown up and her postural system is very heavy ." So the family is forced to split up, with forced shifts that see the father at the beach with the normally disabled children and the mother at home with her disabled daughter until the evening. "I can't choose, I'm forced," says Valeria. A phrase that often comes up in stories about disability: forced, not by lack of desire but by the absence of conditions .

Ginevra lives in Rome , and since she's been in a wheelchair —that is, for the past twelve years—she hasn't been to the beach at all. "I tried half a time, then I gave up," she explains. Her health problem is twofold, respiratory and ambulatory , and it arose after long hospital treatments. For her, who lives alone, the barrier isn't just the beach, but the city itself: sidewalks without ramps, potholes , bicycles, glass and garbage obstructing the passage, subways without elevators, public transport too crowded to accommodate a person with a disability. "In the end, my range of action is limited to the neighborhood. There may be equipped facilities , but if, like me, you don't have a car or anyone to accompany you, they're just dots on a map you'll never reach ."

Three stories, one message : access to the sea isn't just a matter of walkways and beach chairs. It's an ecosystem of services, transportation, costs, rules, and, above all, commitment and understanding from everyone . Walkways are useful if they actually lead to the shore, not if they end in nothing; "jobs" (amphibious chairs) help if someone is trained to use them; ramps work if they aren't occupied by bicycles and other bulky items; accessible bathrooms are accessible if everyone can afford them; a companion is part of the solution, not just another ticket to pay. This is where the rhetoric of inclusion collapses : if entry requires an economic, logistical, and cultural toll , then it simply becomes synonymous with polite exclusion.

There's also the issue of distance and geography. Valeria is clear: "The situation is better on the Riviera Romagnola ," but for her daughter, those extra hours of travel are bearable. Then there's the invisible and powerful issue of carers. In August, when many services are shut down, disability doesn't take a vacation . "We don't need proclamations, just clear choices," Valeria declares. "Municipalities must guarantee at least one stretch of free beach that is truly accessible—not just on paper—with walkways to the shore, amphibious chairs available, and trained staff to provide assistance. Access for companions must be free wherever necessary, and law enforcement must intervene to ensure this is respected. We need accessible public transport , summer shuttles that run from the city center to the beach with designated stops . Local authorities and police must ensure that ramps and parking spaces don't become parking lots, and the private sector can also do its part, not just out of generosity but out of social responsibility : breaking down barriers, reviewing fees, and measuring accessibility with transparent standards."

Finally, there's something that concerns us all. Whether a ramp is free or blocked is decided by our habits. Whether a passageway is respected or ignored is decided by our idea of citizenship. Valeria says bitterly, "People don't care about respecting others, neither in normal life nor in illness ." And as long as Laura has to choose between a bathroom and an extra ticket, as long as Valeria has to split the family up to "take shifts," and Ginevra remains confined to her neighborhood because the city ends where the steps begin, the sea will represent a border. And a border, by definition, separates. Summer at the seaside , in a country surrounded by water, shouldn't be a privilege .