Hotels in Lignano Pineta, Italy. Hotel booking in Lignano Pineta from ahotelinitaly.com

The seaside town of Lignano is in Udine province on Italy's north-eastern coastline. This is the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, closer to the Balkans than the Mediterranean, and with Austria and Slovenia as its neighbours to the north and the east respectively. The Italian region of Veneto borders to the west. The long expanse of coast, meanwhile, all 111 kilometres of it, borders the northern Adriatic Sea.

The town of Lignano itself grew up in the early 1900s, and the resort was, originally, only accessible from the sea. Unsurprisingly perhaps there were no full-time inhabitants, but that all changed in the 1930s, with the draining of the nearby marshes and the first roads into the area. The resort is now divided into Lignano Sabbiadoro (meaning 'golden sands' and being added as a canny marketing ploy back in the thirties, and Lignano Pineta (the pines). And one of the great delights of Lignano is to holiday amid the cool pinewoods that sweep down to the shore. The sea and sun is nearby, but you are pleasantly shaded.

Pushing out into the blue waters of the Adriatic, the Lignano peninsula sits between the broad delta of the River Tagliamento and the Marano Lagoon. There are more than 8km of good sandy beaches, the dense pinewoods that gives this quarter its name, and the whole adds up to an area of extraordinary natural beauty. Ernest Hemingway visited here in 1954 and called it 'the Florida of Italy' (he went on to write 'Across the River and Into the Trees' inspired by the views. The Lagoon today is an important wildlife habitat, with a plethora of seabirds and other wildlife. A delightful idiosyncracy is the temporary fishermen's huts, built from marsh cane harvested from the Lagoon.

To the left you'll find a selection of Lignano Pineta hotels, just to whet your appetite. See also Lignano Pineta hotels (full listings) and our Lignano Pineta hotel map.