In Lignano Pineta the fantastic "Incendio del Mare"

Also this year Lignano Pineta is preparing for the event of August 16th with fireworks. After the pyrotechnics of Ferragosto in Lignano Sabbiadoro, has become tradition that the next night is the time of the beach of Lignano Pineta with its spectacular “Incendio del Mare” (Sea fire).

A name chosen not a random: besides the beautiful fireworks in the sky, every year special fireworks are shot from the boat Aussa, moored 300 m from the beach, and from pier of Pagoda in Lignano Pineta. Fireworks bouncing on the water and light waterfalls that colour the sea with the colours of the fire, to simulating the burning sea. From this feature, organizers have decided to call their fireworks “Incendio del Mare” (Sea fire).

Every year in August 16th the beach of Lignano Pineta welcomes thousands people that wait with trepidation for the beginning of the show. Last summer was registered the record: 50.000 people, both tourists accommodate in hotels of Lignano and commuters come expressly for the show, followed the event on the beach, on the overhead walkway of Pineta and on the terraces of the beach-bars. Great charme and appeal have exercised “the souls of fires”, white and red lights that fell down slowly on the sea thanks to very small parachutes, novelty of 2009.

Who knows what novelties and spectacular choreographies of colours and shapes reserves the 16th year of “Incendio del Mare”. There is a lot of curiosity and certainly also this year there will be new special lights and colours, to repeat the huge success of the last summer.

The beginning of the fireworks is at 11.30 p.m., a time chosen to allow to have dinner quietly both in restaurants and in the hotels of Lignano and then to go to the beach. The fame attained in the years by this event is so great that now it is one of the greatest and most acclaimed fireworks of the Region Friuli Venezia Giulia. This is demonstrated also by the many spectators that come the same evening in Lignano from neighbouring towns, in addition to all tourists that spend their holiday during these days in the hotels of Lignano Pineta. Most part of them goes on foot or by bicycle to the beach, without moving the car in a busy evening and taking the opportunity for a stroll in the centre of Pineta.

At 11.30 p.m. people overflow into the beach and the terraces of the bars, trying to bag a good place to watch the show. But the party for the Incendio del Mare starts already at 9 p.m. with the concert “Aspettando i fuochi” (Waiting for the fireworks), on the square of Piazza D’Olivo. Also this year has been confirmed the team Pellizzari-Giulia-Ballaben, known band that will accompany with its music all tourists until the beginning of fireworks.

And surely there will be a lot of applauses, the best way to thank the organizers of the “Incendio del Mare” and all businesses that contribute to the excellent success of the evening: associations, dealers and hotels of Lignano Pineta. Thanks to their economic and organizational effort, allow the physically creation of the evening.

See you at August 16th from 9.00 p.m. in Lignano Pineta for the 16th “Incendio del Mare”.

Every Thrusday a book and a wine presented in Lignano Pineta

Also this year has started the famous season “Incontri con l’autore e il vino” (Meetings with author and wine) in Lignano Pineta at “Tenda Bar” near Viale a Mare.

Throughout the summer every Thursday at 6.30 p.m. tourists can freely participate in the meeting, in which are presented every time a different book by the writer and a different wine from the many excellent DOC wineries of region Friuli Venezia Giulia.

These meetings meets every year more and more success of public, most of which is composed by tourists who spend the holiday in the apartments and hotels of Lignano Pineta. According to organizers, the success of this event lies in the format that combines the desire of culture with the discover of local flavours. All this contained in the beautiful setting of the beach and sea of Lignano Sabbiadoro. Last year about 6000 people attended the meetings and the organizers aim for the same success also this year.

Besides the presentation of book and wine, meetings are also moments of comparison and account of personal experiences: during the meetings are often established a constructive interaction between the author presenting his book and the public that poses direct questions, building in this way a real event that can involve all participants. After the presentation of the book, public and writer have the opportunity to taste every Thursday a wine from a different DOC wineries of Friuli Venezia Giulia presented by expert sommelier and oenologists and by the owner of the winery.

For 12 years the series of meetings in Lignano Pineta offer the opportunity to tourists to get close to very famous writers, loved both by critics and public. Writers are very happy to present their last book in a sunny place rich in cheerfulness like the beach of Lignano on the upper Adriatic Sea. From Tenda Bar they enjoy a beautiful view on the beach and the seas and the constant sea breeze cools the area also during the hottest days. In addition the square is near the street rich in shops and the hotels of Lignano Pineta, so tourists can easily reach it and then drink an aperitif or dinner in one of the several restaurants and pizzerias of the area.

After tasting the Friulano wine, public can purchase the book, take photos, ask for dedications and autographs, but above all it can participate at the dinner with the author and the owner of winery in restaurants located in the marinas of Lignano Sabbiadoro.

Tourists that wish more information about author in the 12th Meetings with author and wine can ask the staff of their hotel in Lignano or watch the website of the association Lignano nel Terzo Millennio.

Lignano Pineta: 10th Symposium of Sculpture in Parco del Mare

In the beautiful and green Lignano Pineta, in front of the sea and near the famous “train” of shops, restaurants and ice-cream parlours, it is located the Parco del Mare (Park of the Sea). Parco del Mare allows all tourists of Lignano to use better the pine woods, because it was built inside the green lounge of the seaside resort and it offers an environment suitable for adults and children to play, walk and play sport.

Its size and location offer to all guests in holiday in Lignano the chance to stroll along paths in the shadow of the pines enjoying the coolness, and to have a rest on the benches in the park, few walk steps from the beach and from the hotels of Lignano Pineta. So, if the sun on the beach is too hot, you can refresh yourself in the drinking fountains of the park and lying on the green meadows, under the pines and surrounded by modern sculptures.

Parco del Mare is famous also for the presence of works of art of Italian and international sculptors, that show their skill during the International Symposium of Sculpture in Aurisina Stone. This international meeting has reached the tenth year and it takes place during the first half of May directly in the Parco del Mare. This year from Sunday the 9th to Sunday the 23th of May, all tourists in holiday in Lignano can watch the 3 sculptors, which will work on this particular stone in an open air workshop. During these two weeks, guests of the seaside resort can watch the artists, discover the art, the technique and the secrets to work the Aurisina stone. But not only. Sure enough tourists, public and authorities can take part in the realization of the sculptures on the occasion of “Hammer blow Day”. During this day, everyone can hammer and chisel the blocks of stone and contribute in this way to the creation of the work of art.

Peculiarity of the Symposium in Lignano Pineta is that the works will remain where they were carved, that is, under the pines in the Parco del Mare. Artists are so asked to choose the best location to create the sculpture. Thanks to this feature, the park is enriched year after year of valuable works of art of great interest and it turns into an open-air cultural resource for Lignano Sabbiadoro, in addition to beautiful park where relax and do some sport.

Parco del Mare offers also a fitness-trail for sportsmen and also two tennis courts with teachers. In addition the park disposes of bicycle racks, parking places, entrances on all sides of the park and lighting to enable quiet and romantic evening walks before returning to the 3 star hotel in Lignano Pineta. All this, surrounded by flowerbeds and sculptures.

Parco del mare of Lignano Pineta offers to all guests very special relaxing moments, because it allows to “go out” by the lights and vitality of the near city centre and by the buzz of the beach, to “enter” in a world of colours and sounds typical of a pine woods. A real oasis of peace for all tourists in holiday in Lignano.

Lignano Pineta, location of Barcamania 2010

It approaches the second week end for the event Barcamania, 3rd small boat exhibition in Lignano Sabbiadoro.

Barcamania, organised and promoted by Ente Fiere Lignano, is having good success also this year, despite the quirks of the weather of the last week end and the change of location. For the first time, the exhibition is located in Lignano Pineta, along the shopping street called “treno” (train) until the beautiful and big Piazza a Mare, where visitors can enjoy large yachts, more than 10 metres, of different brands. The new location allows also to display a greater number of boats, over a hundred.

The show of small boats draws in Lignano a large number of fans, who have the chance to contact directly the dealer and to have proof of the product. In addition, Lignano is the right place for small boats: a still sea where it is possible to make a lot of excursions to typical small isles, as the Isola di Sant’Andrea (St Andrew Isle) or Porto Buso and enjoy very good fish dishes, to the Marano Lagoon or to the mouth of Stella river, regional wildlife park, or to the towns of Veneto and of the Istrian coast.

Barcamania is to all intents and purposes an event, a chance for many visitors and Lignano’s lovers to spend a pleasant spring day among the several stands of exhibitors and associations of the area related to the sea activities.
Between a boat and the other, visitors can enjoy tasty typical fish dishes offered by the Marano fishermen, or to discover how the Civil Defence works during emergencies that occur in Lignano and surroundings or to ask advices about the safety at sea. In addition, the programme of the event includes meetings and many free demonstrations and tests of sport clubs, as the kite surf and windsurf tests on the beach of Lignano Pineta and the tests in water on small dinghies for children from 8 to 13 years old, under the supervision of the world champion Del Pin, testimonial of Barcamania. This event is also a very good opportunity to play breathtaking water sports with experienced teachers, who can give useful information about courses and school in the area.

The call of Barcamania becomes increasingly and it is an important moment for the whole territory, not only for the “awakening” of Lignano. This year the event forged a partnership with the Movimento Turismo del Vino del Friuli Venezia Giulia, that has provided “Wine bus” to reach Lignano Pineta from regional capitals.

The aim of Barcamania and of the other event organised by Ente Fiere Lignano is to promote the Friulian seaside resort all year round, especially during the dead season through some crowd-pulling events. Important point of this project is to create synergies with the associations both of the Friulian beach and of the surroundings to have tourist flows also in different periods of the year. In this way the businesses of the seaside resorts, as cafés, agencies and hotels in Lignano, can extend the working season and find new tourist flows.

The beach of Lignano Pineta

The summer season 2010 has not yet began, but Lignano Sabbiadoro, particularly its beach of Pineta, has already won the prestigious award “Oscar Beaches” (Bagni da Oscar).

This prize has been awarded by the monthly magazine “Beaches of Italy” (Spiagge d’Italia) not only to Lignano but also to Grado. So the Region Friuli Venezia Giulia gains two Oscars for its two beautiful beaches, classified among the best 10 Italian beaches for families.

The welcome of the hotels of Lignano, the presence of recreational activities for adults and children, the chance to make sport in the open air and in very good sport facilities and especially the attention to the nature and the offer of a city rich in tourist services, are qualities already known and awarded with the famous European Blue Flag. In addition to this flag that waves for 19 consecutive years in the golden beach on the upper Adriatic Sea, Lignano can now boast also the Oscar for the innovatory marketing.

This Oscar concerns the technological offer of the beach of Lignano Pineta, particularly the wireless technology, used to inform guests under the beach umbrellas of the seven beach offices about the animation services, events, shows and cultural meetings in the seaside resort. In this way tourists were informed about news of Lignano and the success of this innovation has been found in most public presence in the various events.

This service will be available also during the summer 2010 and all tourists in Lignano will know in a simple, fast and free way the events and the services in the seaside resort. Also the guests of the hotels in Lignano Pineta like the Croce di Malta, in their part of private beach, will be reached by the information. The service, as matter of fact, covers all seven beach offices of the Lignano Pineta beach, for a total of 4000 beach umbrellas.

Technology is present not only in the coast of Lignano Pineta. Also Lignano Sabbiadoro is on the cutting edge: its beach disposes of free wifi connection, allowing tourists to surf the Net through smart phones or laptops directly from the beach umbrella or while sipping a drink in a café on the beach.

In this way guests of the friulian beach have the chance to connect in every moment both in and out the hotel of Lignano and they are always updated about the events. The most part of the hotels in Lignano offers among the services, the internet connection in the rooms, or in the hall or in the lounges like the Croce di Malta.

The continuous pursuit of the innovation shows the attention that Lignano turns to tourists, that have the need to surf the Net also during the holiday to know the events of the seaside resort, the most interesting cities and towns in the surroundings and also to update their profile in various social networks. The award “Oscar Beaches” for the innovative marketing of the Lignano Pineta beach shows that the investment in the innovation is important also for the resorts like Lignano, which continues to meet several awards and to welcomes more and more tourists in its beautiful golden beach.

Great Sand Nativity in Lignano Sabbiadoro

If you wish to see a very special Christmas crib, you must visit the Great Sand Nativity in Lignano.

On the square in front of Terrazza a Mare, visitors can admire an entire Christmas crib made of sand, with a lot of figures, animals and houses, every day from December the 6th to January the 6th.

In Lignano Sabbiadoro, from several years, artists of the Sand Academy in Rome, make the Nativity scene using the same sand where in the summer season children play and tourists lie in the sun. In about twenty days, under a covered structure in front of Terrazza a Mare, artists work more than 180 cubic meters of sand with different techniques to realize the sculptures of the crib, that has always a different subject.

Every year the Nativity is in a particular scenario, surrounded by the figures that live in this world and by important personalities of the history of Lignano. The same scene of the Nativity is presented each time in a different way: it can be the heart of the scene or it may be part of the scenario, and so be a natural element among the different characters.
The Great Sand Nativity offers children the chance to have fun, discovering sand animals that artists hidden inside the scene.

In the covered structure, pictures and films show the moments of the production of sculptures and also the used techniques, while a little area offers visitors the chance to buy calendars, postcards and bookmarks of the Great Sand Nativity Scene, as a reminder of the Christmas time in Lignano.

And to combat the cold, there is hot chocolate and mulled wine offered by the non-profit association Lignano in Fiore, organizer of the Sand Nativity and many other events throughout the year in the Friulian beach. The aim of this association is to realize projects for poor children in the region and in different countries of the world with the collected offerings.

In addition to the Great San Nativity in city centre, another very important meeting point is the Nativity scene in Lignano Pineta, few meters from the entrance of the seaside resort. For many years there is here an outdoor Nativity, more simple than that of sand, but also beautiful and full of love, because it is made by people who live in that area.

For residents of Lignano Pineta and Riviera, this is the meeting point during the Christmas time to drink some glass of mulled wine or prosecco and to taste special dishes.

Other Christmas cribs are located in the churches of Lignano Sabbiadoro and Pineta and also these are made by volunteers and children of the schools. Children have also the chance to contribute to the realization of an original Nativity scene, the “Crib in motion”. During the Christmas time children can bring a statue of the crib and choose where to place it. In this way, thanks to the continuing contribution of the children, the crib is always “moving”, with new figures.

Despite shops and hotels in Lignano are closed and the beach has no beach umbrellas, the city offers also during the Christmas time the chance to spend very special days, discovering small masterpieces.

Visit Lignano in this period, and Merry Christmas!

Used boat show in Aprilia Marittima

From Saturday, October 24th, to Sunday, November the 1st, few kilometres from the beach of Lignano Sabbiadoro, takes place Nautilia, the most important used boat exhibition in Europe.

For the 22nd consecutive year, the district of Aprilia Marittima opens the doors to this important event that draws several brokers and visitors from Italy and from foreign countries, generating big revenues throughout the period of the exhibition. Thanks to the special market of used boats, Nautilia has carved a prominent place in the panorama of Italian and European boat shows. Nautilia doesn’t compete with the biggest and most famous exhibitions, but it turns to a specific market, that of used boats.

From October 24th to November the 1st, in Aprilia Marittima there will be about fifty brokers and exhibitors, ready to show to the visitors hundreds of boats from 7 to 20 meters long, all displayed on land. The exhibition on land is the second important feature of Nautilia, that differentiates it from all other Italian nautical exhibitions. Thanks to the gangways, visitors can completely check the used boats, also rudders and propellers. The used boat exhibition offers a wide variety of boats: it considers that about 20% will be sailing boats, 75% motor boats and the remaining 5% motorsailers.

This year the “Ente Fiera Cantieri di Aprilia” enlarged the exhibition space through a redevelopment of the areas, offering in this way the opportunity to show more boats. Aprilia Marittima becomes for two weeks a very important meeting point for yachtsmen and shipowners from all over Europe and thanks to this event it can show the peculiarity of its district: respect for the beautiful environmental characteristics with the presence of modern nautical infrastructures.

In Aprilia Marittima it is possible to spend both a quiet and relaxing stay in a natural environment, and more active holiday with a lot of sport and fun. Besides, its location allows to reach in few minutes Lignano Sabbiadoro by car or by boat and so to spend beautiful days on the beach.

Also this summer season is nearing the end and the team of the Hotel Croce di Malta in Lignano Pineta take the opportunity to say good-bye and to thank all tourists that accommodated in the hotel.

In this period the most of the hotels in Lignano closes to enjoy the earned winter holidays and at the same time, it starts to estimate the performance of the summer just passed. Despite the crisis, the seaside resort hasn’t show particular falls, indeed, early data show a good steady flow of tourists and prolonged until the first 10 days of September. Thanks to the good and warm weather, the beach of Lignano had a large crowd for several week ends, including the first week end of September. Both the beach of Sabbiadoro than the beach of Pineta were crowded with tourists and commuters, that took advantage of good weather for one last day on the beach.

Also the balance of the hotels in Lignano is positive, with an average attendance rather good. The months of July and August have had a very good performance, with peaks of attendance in Lignano that have balanced the weak June. During this month, because of bad weather with different rainfalls and not summer temperatures, hoteliers record a rather worrying decrease, recovered in the next months.

Until the first 10 days of September the sun was shining, but then are coming the first storms and a low temperature, that caused the end of the tourist season in the seaside resort. Now, shops and hotels in Lignano close and after a short period of winter rest, they will begin to get ready to the next summer season with new services and modern facilities.

Also the Hotel Croce di Malta is moving towards winter closure and during the next months it will improve its services, offering to tourists even more special beach holidays.

Meanwhile, the staff says you good-bye and it waits for you in its 3 star hotel in Lignano Pineta to spend another summer of relaxation and fun.

Aerial photo of Lignano Pineta beach

The 3 star Hotel Croce di Malta in Lignano Sabbiadoro is pleased to present to its guests the new website.

The new website is characterized by airy graphics with soft colours, that reflect the calm and the elegant and comfortable atmosphere offered by the hotel.

Thanks to a menu rich in information, the website’s surfing is very easy and fast: with only a click you can find all useful indications for your stay in the Hotel Croce di Malta. The website provides also a special page for the services to the children and to the parents with babies. For the families it is very important to know that their children can have fun in an area with stuffed animals, toys and books and that they can use beds for children with bunks and bicycles with child seats free.

The new website provides also two useful tools to spend the beach holidays in this Lignano hotel: the costs estimate and the on-line booking. The on-line estimate allows to calculate in an easy and very quick way the costs of your holidays in the Hotel Croce di Malta, instead with the on-line booking it is possible to book direct the rooms paying with the credit cards.
In addition to this, there are the directions and the Google Maps. In this way it will be easier reach the hotel in Lignano Pineta and also know the seaside resort and its surroundings.

The new website, in addition to the tools to plan your beach holidays, provides a lot of space for the beautiful photos of the hotel and its services. The several pictures in each page will make you appreciate even more the quality of our 3-star hotel in Lignano Pineta.

All you have to do is visit the new website of the Hotel Croce di Malta and have a good holiday in Lignano Sabbiadoro!