Beach Volley

Professional Women's Beach Volleyball came to Sciacca a few weeks ago. It was at Spiaggi Fogia, just down the road from where I live, so of course I attended some of it on Sunday morning. Amazing.

There were six teams in the circuit of the moving tournament, each team with six players, although injuries reduced some of the teams to just four players. Four players were on the beach at any given time for each side. These women were the stars of the winter time professional women's volleyball teams here in Italy (yes, we do have a professional league of women's volleyball players, as well as men volleyball players).

The tournament traveled from resort town to resort town, and Sciacca ws the penultimate stop on the tour. The 'finals' were played last weekend in beautiful Salerno. I was happy to see that Paolo's kitchen franchise, Scavolini, was represented by a team. Each team had a corporate sponsor, and of course the tour had a number of sponsors as well, each of whom set up a tent and gave away free merchandise.

I was amazed, as the stands, which were of course temporary, and held about a thousand people, were always pretty full, and people kept wandering in, then off to the beach, and then back to the volleyball. Of course parking was a problem, but at lest there were police officers there to let their friends have the prime parking spots, and shrug their shoulders at any traffic jams created by folks looking for parking.

The tournament even had traveling band, who marched between games, and played p-funk ala George Clinton, as well as some nice dixie land riffs. By the quality of the tubas they were using (being a former tuba player myself) I realized that they had put some real money into the band. My favorite of course was the sax player with his Moroccan hat, that looked far too hot for the day, but actually keeps the head fairly cool, I am told.

All in all, it was a neat way to spend a Sunday morning after getting the morning papers, and with the crowds that showed up, Sciacca could become a regular stop on the summer tour.