Description

Described by Ernest Hemingway as the Italian Florida, Lignano stands on the eastern side of the Tagliamento estuary and consists of three distinct localities, Lignano Sabbiadoro, Lignano Pineta and Lignano Riviera. Historically, the port of Lignano was strategically important as it gave access to Marano, which had been fortified as one of the key strongholds ensuring Venice’s control of the northern Adriatic. Thus Lignano only appears in medieval and modern history in association with Marano. The peninsula was full of pinewoods until the beginning of the twentieth century and was not even accessible from the land, but only from the sea, from Marano and the Tagliamento. The development of the area as a tourist resort began in 1926, when the road linking Lignano to Latisana was built, and with the addition of the enticing “Sabbiadoro” (goldensand) it was already able to accommodate 60,000 tourists by 1938. In the 1950s Marcello d’Olivo, an architect from Udine, took his inspiration from Renaissance concepts to design the road layout for Lignano Pineta in the shape of a spiral, while the still highly popular Terrazza a Mare (sea-view terrace) was opened in 1972.