A pool on the beach

The Altamarea Beach Village in Cattolica was set up in 2002 by a group of eleven highly experienced beach attendants who dreamed of creating the largest tourist village on the Romagna Riviera. This ambitious project had the original idea of using a colour code to identify areas aimed at different categories of users. The Yellow area is for families with children (facilities include a children’s club, a nursery, a shaded and fenced play area with babysitting service, a creative workshop and internet point); Orange for wellness and relaxation (with whirlpools and colour therapy, as well as dance floors and entertainment); Red for young people and sports enthusiasts (facilities include a gym, swimming pool, beach volleyball, basketball, football, bowling and an amusement area). In this wide-ranging resort focusing on wellness, entertainment and sport, the multifunctional spaces are tailored to guests’ expectations and desired pace of holiday. Facilities include a quiet reading area with relaxing ethnic décor, a fitness and swimming area with a water blade pool, a children’s pool with aquatic games, both of which use heated salt water, as well as hydrobike and water aerobics courses. The swimming pool in the Red coded area, the largest open-air pool to be found anywhere along Cattolica beach, recently underwent a paving renovation project that extended to the gym area. This innovative project involved placing ceramic tiles directly on the sand using tiles from the Woodays collection from Tagina Ceramiche d’Arte.
The chosen product was the Compact 2 cm, 61×61 cm size, specially designed to be installed without the need for adhesive and in difficult situations such as on sand, gravel or grass. The perimeter edge of the swimming pool paving also uses the 12 mm thick tile in the same colour and a 15×92 cm size.
The result is a continuous, attractive surface in which the hard-wearing qualities of ceramic are combined with the natural appeal of wood. The sensation is that of walking across a large natural sand-coloured platform before plunging into the pool.
Woodays combines the beauty and warmth of wood with the practicality and durability of ceramics. With its natural aesthetics and its palette in keeping with the colours of the location, the ceramic tile paving is a key element of an environmentally-friendly project. Altamarea Beach Village boasts UNITER ISO 14001 certification and in 2007 was granted Cattolica Bandiera Blu (blue flag) status by the environmental education foundation F.E.E. as an eco-sustainable bathing establishment with the best services on the Adriatic Riviera. A member of the Italian Ecospiagge network, it promotes separate waste collection, uses photovoltaic panels and solar thermal energy, recycles shower water for irrigation and encourages guests to participate in ecological initiatives such as the ECOBEACHDAY, an event sponsored by ARPA Emilia Romagna.