Italy goes on vacation

Between 1963 and 1964 four popular 45 laps records were released: Sapore di sale, Una rotonda sul mare, Abbronzatissima and Sul cocuzzolo della montagna. Four songs, sung respectively by Gino Paoli, Fred Buongusto and Edoardo Vianello, which can be considered the pop celebration of a new rite – often full of optimism – that characterized the Italian “economic miracle”: summer holidays.

Precisely in those years, the so-called “boom” was coming to an end (again in 1963 came out a movie by Vittorio Sica called The boom, played by Alberto Sordi). The strong economic growth gave way to a more complex and delicate phase of the political and economic life of our country, which was given the name of “conjuncture”.

Holidays, however, had already become a phenomenon that involved an increasingly significant part of the population: in 1959 13% of Italians went on vacation, but in the early sixties the percentage had already risen to 21% to then reach 46% in the mid-eighties. A formidable incentive was constituted by private motorization policies and by the construction of the Autostrada del Sole, from Milan to Naples (1956-1964).

The itinerary show together a series of works that embody this important phenomenon that would soon become one of the engines of the economic dynamics of our country, highlighting its great potential for tourism. The illustrated works are hotels, residential complexes, holiday houses, tourist villages, lidos, mountain huts, mountain settlements, as well as spas and recreational theme parks. Many Italian regions and different kinds of offerings are represented: sea, mountain, hot springs, hills and lakes.