Gela Promenade and the Beach After a Storm

Along the beaches of Gela stretches a promenade named after the city, Frederick II of Swabia (Lungomare Federico II di Svevia), Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily. There is a wide boardwalk between the roadway and the sand strip, where you can watch sunsets and sunrises and see the green ray under appropriate weather conditions.

The city is better known as the center of offshore oil production and refining, so it is not included in the list of fashionable resorts. The landlady of the Ragusa apartment where I had stayed two days earlier, when I told her that I was going to Jela next, grimaced and said, "Sgradevole citta" (Nasty city). Indeed, my first impressions upon arrival were not very pleasant, and the weather didn't help matters, but the next morning, after the storm, the sun came out, and the town seemed quite cozy and beautiful.

The city beaches of Lido Eden and Lido Conchiglia (Seashell) are covered with soft golden sand up to 80 meters wide and have all the necessary infrastructure for recreation.

Now the beaches were completely empty and all the facilities were closed. It was the end of October, the season was over, although the water temperature was 24-25 degrees, but the sun was increasingly covered by clouds (oh, if only we had such a summer! - by their standards, a short rainstorm every three days is a rainy season).

Yesterday, as I have already mentioned, was such a day - all day there was darkness, and from the evening walk I was driven into the hotel by the rain, which by night turned into a real storm with a wall of rain, continuous flashing of lightning and thunder, from which the walls shook. The consequences of it, not too noticeable in the city (there was simply cleaner - the streams of rain water washed away the garbage), but on the embankment it was immediately noticeable - the roadway was covered with a layer of sand.

Surprisingly, there was no sand on the tiled pavement of the promenade, and the wooden deck separating the promenade from the beach was also covered with sand.

The turbulent streams also left noticeable channels on the beach itself.

And even whole canyons. The night rain poured for four hours, and a huge mass of water rolled down the steep coastal streets into the sea.