Italy is a bargain for vacationing Americans. Not so much for Italians

cnbc.com:

RIMINI, ITALY — The seaside town of Rimini is the Jersey Shore of Italy: From here to the port town of Ancona in the southeast, there are more than 40 miles of sandy beaches. 

It was made famous by native son Federico Fellini, who grow up in the town and featured it in several of his movies, including Amarcord. 

The region, Emilia-Romagna,  is synonymous with Italy's greatest export: La Dolce Vita, the good life of wine, food, good-looking people and fast cars. 

You can see la dolce vita the minute you hit the beach: the obvious first thing is the beach bars, hundreds of them, where thousands — wearing as little as possible — wash down oceans of Aperol spritzes, Negronis and Italian white wine for 5 euros ($5.35) a glass. 

Then there's the food, which has made this region one of the foodie capitals of Europe. 

People flock to the cities of Parma, Modena, Bologna, Ravenna and Rimini to eat the Parma ham (prosciutto), the cheese (Parmesan, of course) and the pasta in endless varieties, but particularly tagliatelle, tortellini and lasagna, all made by hand. 

It's also the industrial heart of Italy, where Ferraris, Maseratis and Lamborghinis are made. 

Unlike Americans, Italians do not just plunk down their beach bag and dive in the ocean. 

The Italians have constructed small cities on their beaches, and there is a protocol. 

Here, you rent a beach chair and umbrella from the cabana boys. The chairs and umbrellas are arranged in neat rows, nearly three dozen of them, all numbered, that stretch all the way to the Adriatic Sea nearly a quarter mile from the street. 

And it is the Adriatic that everyone comes for. It separates the Italian peninsula from Croatia and Albania 100 miles to the east. Like the Atlantic, the Adriatic