Lido di Jesolo Geography

Jesolo occupies a low, flat sandy strip between the Adriatic and the reclaimed land behind it, between the mouths of the Sile and the Piave.

The beach is wide and the sea shelves very gradually, so you can wade a long way out — the single physical fact behind the whole resort economy.

Behind the built-up strip the ground is reclaimed marsh, drained in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and lying barely above, and in places below, sea level. It is kept dry by embankments and pumping stations, which is worth knowing: the resort exists at the pleasure of a drainage system.

The natural dune and pine belt that once ran along this shore survives here only in fragments. The Laguna del Mort, a few kilometres east, is the nearest piece of unbuilt coast and shows what the whole strip looked like before 1950.