Beach resort

“ It is a great resort of visitors both on foot and in carriages. A band of music plays alternate days on the east and west bays. In each of these bays there are bathing establishments of a construction peculiar to the Riviera, being somewhat of the nature of the Lacustrian dwellings. They are simply wooden sheds for undressing and dressing in, resting upon poles stuck firmly into the beach, with depending ladders to enable the bathers to descend to the water. ”

“ In one of the many indentures of Kilkieran Bay,—favored by a southerly aspect and a fine sandy beach, sheltered by two projecting headlands,—stood a little row of cabins, originally the dwellings of poor fishermen, but now, in summer-time, the resort of the neighboring gentry, who frequented the coast for sea-bathing. ”

“ Fronting this unkempt shore is a line of barrack-like hotels, with a few cottages of the cheap sort. At the end of this row of hotels is a fine granite Casino, spacious, solid, with wide verandas, and a tennis-court—such a building as even Newport might envy. Then come more hotels, a cluster of cheap shops, and a long line of bath-houses facing a lovely curving beach. Bathing is the fashion at the Pier, and everybody goes to the beach at noon. The spectators occupy chairs on the platform in front of the bath-houses, or sit under tents erected on the smooth sand. ”

“ The mountainous, embracing arms of the bay are exquisite in contour and color, and the beach is very fine. The hotel is perfectly comfortable—indeed, uncommonly attractive—and the extensive planting of trees, palms, and shrubs, and the cultivation of flowers, will change the place in a year or two into a scene of green and floral loveliness; in this region two years, such is the rapid growth, suffices to transform a desert into a park or garden. ”

“ Sisters, do not be led to suppose that the Ocean Hotel, large and grand as it is, means all Long Branch. Why, there is a mile of hotels and cottages running along the beach, all swarming over with people. As you ride up the street you pass dozens and dozens of little summer-houses, full of young people looking out at the sea, which comes in with a slow rush and swell now that leaves a lonesome feeling in the heart. ”

“ Each summer, before the War, the Western Beach, with its vast expanse of golden sands, its countless bathing-machines and coloured tents, offered, in the bright sunshine and clear air, an extraordinarily animated and gay scene. ”

“ One finds himself at home in this new Western city, and there are a thousand ways in which to amuse yourself. If you are disposed for a walk, there are any number of delightful woodpaths leading to famous bits of beach where you may sit and dream the livelong day without fear of interruption or notice. If you would try camping-out, there are guides and canoes right at your hand, and the choice of scores of beautiful and delightful spots within easy reach of your hotel or along the shore of the lake and its numerous beautiful islands, or as far away into the forest as you care to penetrate. ”

“ I am writing in the reading room of a summer hotel. Without, the rain is sweeping across the bathing beach, the tennis courts are flooded, the golf course, without a doubt, is a swampy morass. It is a dreary sight for one who looks through the window pane. Our little world is upon a vacation, and all but the few who wish to tramp the beach in raincoats and gum boots must stay in-doors. ”

“ There is the wide, gradually shelving beach, ceaselessly washed by the rolling surf, crowded with people of all ages and stations, bobbing in the water, frolicking on the beach, or sedately seated in the shaded chairs. Back on the beach runs the long line of hotels and cottages that we find at all great ocean resorts. ”

“ The hotel stands upon the south front of the beach and near the sea, above which it is sufficiently elevated to give a fine prospect. The sound of the beating surf is perpetual there. At low tide there is a splendid driving beach miles in extent, and though the slope is abrupt, the opportunity for bathing is good, with a little care in regard to the undertow. But there is a safe natatorium on the harbor side close to the hotel. The stranger, when he first comes upon this novel hotel and this marvellous scene of natural and created beauty, is apt to exhaust his superlatives. ”

“ Half a mile from the center of the town is a fine beach bordered by jutting rock promontories. Large bathing establishments, cafés for ices and tea, and splendid villas with well laid out grounds recall our own shore resorts. A good pedestrian may be tempted to climb over the steep enclosing hill and descend on the other side to the electric car track for his return to the city. The Grand Hotel with beautiful grounds is the leading hostelry of the place. ”

“ Then, after another dip, they dressed and lunched in the restaurant of the splendid bathing pavilion, one of the finest structures of its kind in the world. Again they sat on the beach watching the opalescent mountains. They felt intensely drowsy in the warm, dry air, and by and by sleep descended on them, and they lay like so many enchanted victims by the still waters of that mysterious lake. ”

“ On this narrow shore strip summer resorts like Seaside Park, Barnegat City, Beach Haven, Atlantic City, Ocean City and many others have developed and there is no better beach in the world for bathing and other aquatic sports. ”

“ The plage is a pretty sight on a bright day. There are hundreds of tents—all bright-coloured. When one approaches Boulogne from the sea the beach looks like a parterre of flowers. Near the Casino there are a quantity of old-fashioned ramshackly bathing cabins on wheels, with very small boys cracking their whips and galloping up and down, from the digue to the edge of the water, on staid old horses who know their work perfectly—put themselves at once into the shafts of the carriages—never go beyond a certain limit in the sea. ”

“ The hotel opened, and the small houses by the pier were filled with summer visitors; children swarmed on the white beach, rolling in the sand and paddling in the water. Mothers and nurses in national costumes of the Spreewald sat on the grass with their sewing, looking after them. ”

“ The marine esplanade and the firm sands left by the receding tide were ever alive with crowds of people, who either for health or pleasure, or a combination of the two, had arrived in the watering-place. The bathing vans were still unequal to the demands on their accommodation, and many were compelled to dispense with their decorous shelter, and unrobe themselves on the more secluded parts of the beach. ”

“ Although the shore looks to the east, and does not get the prevailing southern breeze, and the beach has little surf, both water and air are mild, the bathing is safe and agreeable, and the view of the illimitable sea dotted with sails and fishing-boats is always pleasing. A crowd begets a crowd, and soon the world's people made a city larger than the original one, and still more fantastic, by the aid of paint and the jigsaw. The tent, however, is the type of all the dwelling-houses. The hotels, restaurants, and shops follow the usual order of flamboyant seaside architecture. ”

“ There are smooth sands, with seaweed-covered rocks--hence the odd name of the resort--a rude jetty, which stretches out some little distance into deep water, and one or two or three crooked streets, which are united with the wider and straighter thoroughfares of the new town. A prettier or quieter or more agreeable place could scarcely be found in England, and certainly not on the south coast. ”

“ It is a healthful resort, for all the winds that blow come from the sea, and its sea-views are striking, the rugged masses of Bradda Head, the mellow-coloring of the Calf, and the broad expanse of waters, dotted by scores of fishing-boats, making many scenes of artistic merit. While the want of trees makes the land-views harsh and cold, yet the glens and coves opening into the sea are the charms of Manx scenery, the high fuchsia-hedges surrounding many of the cottages giving bright coloring to the landscape when the flowers are in bloom. ”

“ When feeling run down after a long spell of intense heat in the plains, a trip to this resort is most refreshing, for there it is always cool enough to wear light tweeds during the day and to sleep under a blanket at night. The mountain rambles are lovely, be it over the lofty peaks, through the trees and scrub in the valleys or along the bed of a stream, where frequent pools of running, crystal water afford good bathing or a little fishing for those addicted to the gentle art. ”

“ And as a great number of high groins stand out from the shore along this piece of coast, the beach is practically cut off and made private except at very low water, when people can get around the ends of the groins. These houses are consequently highly desirable during the bathing season, and it is the custom of many of their occupiers to let them furnished during the summer to persons of fashion and affluence. ”

“ As a summer resort, it is fairly entitled to the name, being one of the most popular watering places in America. Its summer hotels are among the most commodious and attractive to be found anywhere, while private cottages and villas have sprung up on every available site, both on the shore, and on all the islands near. The facilities for fishing and boating, combined with the pure and invigorating atmosphere, and the beautiful scenery, attract to the place a tide of summer visitors, ever increasing in volume with each succeeding year. ”

“ A summer resort, however, is a summer resort the world over, and we found the historic city, which has gracefully fitted itself to the curve of its beautiful bay, crowded with idle people, elaborately dressed, who sat long at the noonday breakfast, and longer yet at the evening dinner, and then longest of all on the benches in the park, where bands clashed and fireworks flared, until the very stars began to blink for sleepiness. ”

“ These sand hills are the most striking features of the Beach. The biggest of them are not more than sixty feet high, yet so hard a feat is it to climb to the top, and so extended is the view below you—on one side the wide Bay, on the other, the 13 ocean stretching its restless surface to the horizon—that you feel yourself upon an elevation tenfold as high. ”

“ The beach, where the great rollers of the Pacific dash in, was magnificent; but one cannot safely bathe thereon. The water is heroically cold, and the surf too fierce and heavy for ordinary mortals. The sea water, warmed, tamed, and confined in a bath-house, is what is safest to take. ”

“ Up and down the beach for miles as far as the eye can see is the broad expanse of hard, white sand—fourteen miles long at low tide—making one of the finest drives imaginable, while off shore the white winged yachts add an enchantment to the scene. The city in itself is very attractive, the parks, public and private buildings, broad, well laid out streets, show prosperity everywhere. ”

“ In every direction go off channels among them of sparkling, dancing, green water, giving fine vista views, the dark crags at the water's edge underlying the frame of green foliage bounding the picture. The population has an aquatic flavor, and everybody seems to go about in boats, while the place has the air of a purely pleasure resort, evidently frozen up and hybernating when the tide of summer travel ebbs. ”

“ We have one hotel, incongruously conspicuous on the neck of ground dividing sea from river at the pier's base; but we have no theatres, no music-halls, no punch-and-judy show, no niggers, no "amusements" (!!!) of any sort. We have a few bathing-machines upon the beach, and a vast picturesque camp of bathing-tents, but not any other sign of commercial enterprise. There is no esplanade to swagger on; no electric lights to set off our beauties by [159] night; no illumination over all the "promenade" and mignonette gardens and pier after sunset, except the light of the moon and stars. ”

“ In fact, the hills are almost perpendicular, and almost inaccessible to a nervous party, who in descending feels as if he must fall on the horse's tail, and ascending drop out of the cart behind. Yet to the young and active it is a wild, lovely summer resort, its unusual scenery presenting a most pleasurable and novel spectacle. ”

“ Some things we think we better omit. To watch this beach of bathers is like having a front seat at the Winter Garden Follies. The visitor may study the contour of beach and bathers. Here he meets the living skeleton of angles and the bag of bones, as well as her heavy-set sister with all her capricious curves, crests, elevations and depressions. ”

“ The eastern coast, with its ragged outline of bays, headlands, indentations, islands, capes, and sand-spits, from Watch Hill, a favorite breezy resort, to Mount Desert, presents an almost continual chain of hotels and summer cottages. In fact, the same may be said of the whole Atlantic front from Mount Desert down to Cape May. It is to the traveler an amazing spectacle. The American people can no longer be reproached for not taking any summer recreation. ”

“ A commodious and elegant hotel has been erected, where casual visitors and others, in conjunction with the allurements of a well-served table, can enjoy the exhilarating prospect of the sea, and the numberless vessels of all denominations that stud and traverse its waters. For the accommodation of the resident population, a reservoir, containing nearly two thousand gallons of water, has been constructed, and supplied from a fine spring on the beach. ”

“ Now he could see, three miles to the northward, the long pier and the clustered roofs of the great hotel buildings. He had often come thus far on patrol, but had always gazed at the glittering resort as forbidden ground until he should regain his rightful place among these pleasure-seekers.
Soon he passed through a noble avenue arched with palms, and came to lawns that almost lipped the sea. After the smarting dazzle of sand and ocean, this lush, green vista was like cold water to a thirsty man. Parties of golfers were drifting across the background ”