For more than a century, the people of Trieste, in northeastern Italy, have performed a very specific ritual when they go for a swim.
At the La Lanterna city beach, where generations of Triestini have enjoyed a dip in their lunch break, or whiled away weekends on the pebbly shore, visitors first line up at a window to pay their entry fee of 1.20 euros — about $1.40.
Then they enter through one of two doors: women on the left, men to the right. Corridors lead to the changing areas, and from there it’s straight to the beach. This is where newbies might get a surprise — because it’s not just the changing rooms that are single-sex.
La Lanterna, also known as El Pedocin, is Europe’s last remaining gender-segregated beach. Step out onto the pebbles and you’ll be surrounded by women chatting in bikinis, or men playing cards, and never the twain shall meet. If you arrived with someone of the opposite sex, they’ll be on the other side of a 10-foot wall. Want to speak to them? Sure you can — if you swim out beyond the breaker. Only in the open waters are the genders allowed to mix.
El Pedocin has been a beloved haunt of the Triestini since it opened in the late 19th or early 20th century, but it made headlines in June when two tourists from Milan were less than impressed by its charms.
According to local media reports, which then made their way around the world, the couple paid to enter but were horrified when a fellow guest informed them of the separate gender rule.
The female tourist told the local woman that it was “absurd and medieval,” according to local paper Il Piccolo, before demanding a refund.
She appears to be in the minority. Since the incident, ticket sales have risen by over 50% year-on-year, from 34,885 entries in July 2025 to 53,610 in July 2026.
The woman’s outburst put the spotlight on what is not just a beach for the Triestini, but a place that they are profoundly linked to. El Pedocin may just be a narrow-ish strip of pebbles beside the city’s port, but to the locals it’s a cherished place of memory — not just of their own families, but of the city itself.
“Like all Triestini, I was taken there by my mother,” says award-winning novelist Mauro Covacich, who was born and raised in the city, and has written books about it, though he now lives in Rome.
“It was very easy for women to go to El Pedocin,” he says. “It was close to home, there were lots of buses, it was the only city-center beach. So Triestini, but especially women, used to go. At the time, you were measured by height not age, so I used to go with her until I couldn’t be in the female area anymore.” Today, a parent can bring in a child under 12 of any gender.
El Pedocin has been part of Trieste longer than Trieste has been part of Italy. The bagno marino (marine bath), which sits an easy 20-minute stroll along the waterfront from the main square, Piazza Unità d’Italia, opened its doors sometime between the end of the 1800s and the start of the 1900s. Traditionally, the opening date is given as 1903, though it’s uncertain. What is certain is that at the time, Trieste was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire — its fourth-largest city, and its primary seaport.
“It went from a negligible little village that kind of didn’t exist until the late 18th century when Austria came along, and in the course of a century it became very prosperous and rich,” says Katia Pizzi, senior lecturer in Italian Studies at the University of London. Previously a backwater in the “armpit” of the Adriatic, on what is now the Italy-Slovenia border, Trieste became the main point of entry for all goods arriving or departing from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
“It attracted many immigrants — in search of labor but also immigrants with capital,” says Pizzi. “It became very, very rich, very fast.”
El Pedocin — whose nickname comes from the word for “louse,” since it was the spot where Austrian soldiers used to clean and de-flea their horses on the shore — has its roots in that dynamic, multicultural side of Trieste. It’s also rooted in the Triestine tradition of beach time. “Other people take coffee breaks but we do a bathing and tanning break,” says local journalist and author Micol Brusaferro, a regular at Pedocin. “We happily go to the beach alone. The Triestini have a special relationship with the sea and tanning. We go alone to relax.”
El Pedocin’s gender segregation is also tied to Trieste’s history of female emancipation. This was one of the first places in what is now Italy to have a girls-only high school, says Pizzi, who adds that female education was normal in the major cities of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but not in Italy.
“When Trieste became Italian in 1918, the levels of schooling were very high,” she says. “Trieste was not only a prosperous city, but it was culturally very vibrant and the middle classes were very well educated — including the women.”
Like many other populations in the Austro-Hungarian empire, the Triestini embraced the great outdoors and physical fitness. Covacich calls it a “cult of physicality.” Because of that emancipation, women were part of it. This was a city full of sporting associations — swimming, sailing, rock-climbing. “El Pedocin was part of this,” says Pizzi. “It was about cultivating the body as a form of sport and personal advancement.”
Covacich says that right from the start, women wore relatively modern, and daring, swimsuits. This wasn’t a place to be coy — it was a place to get tanned and go swimming. “A tan probably was the crown for this idea of physical wellness,” he says.
A feminist landmark
El Pedocin separated the genders from the day it opened. Not so unusual in 1903, perhaps, but even as fashions changed the Triestini kept the beach single-sex — a result of that female emancipation.
In the early 20th century, some of the best-known writers, journalists, photographers, artists and sportspeople in Trieste were women, says Pizzi, who cites Wanda Wulz’s “Io e Gatto” photograph, an original print of which is in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, as a portrait of “feral femininity.” The city, she says, had a “feminist makeup” before it became part of Italy.
And as the city integrated into Italy’s Catholic culture, that feminism stayed strong.
“It was a segregated beach from the start, and it was seen as a good thing — that’s why it has carried on all that time,” says Pizzi. “Women didn’t need to be bothered or disturbed or nagged. It was a space where they could sunbathe without fearing any interference from men … There was a sense of ownership that this was their space and they didn’t need to be bothered by the male gaze.”
Covacich adds that it has always been a symbol of “liberty” for women. He sees the beach as a place for women, despite its male side. Going there with his mom, surrounded by women from young to old, gave him a sense of “eternal nurturing,” he says. The almost surreal nature of growing up there, surrounded by women, is one he likens to the female-centered fantasy scenes in Federico Fellini’s 1963 movie, “8½.”
Today, the Triestini are increasingly turning to El Pedocin when they want a quick break in the sun.
Covacich says that many of the women work in city center shops and pop in on their long lunch breaks.
And many of the men on the other side are port workers, says Samuele Miceli, a lifeguard at the beach.
Miceli has been working at Pedocin for four years, and likes it so much that at the start of every season, he requests to be posted to the gender-segregated beach, rather than any of the others managed by the cooperative that employs him.
“It’s all about the serenity here,” he says, remarking on the perfect balance of sheltered water with views out to where the sea meets the horizon, and of the karst limestone landscape surrounding the city. “It’s two different worlds. I’m really happy here.”
Miceli says that the women’s side is a mix of moms with kids, and regular clients: “Women who like to be peaceful.” While the women enjoy their independence, he says that the men’s side is a mix of older gents playing cards, tourists, sunbathing port workers and disabled visitors of both genders — since the men’s side is fully wheelchair-accessible, with access directly into the water.
Since Pedocin is the closest beach to the city center, Miceli says that tourists often arrive unaware of the gender segregation rules. “Some leave but mainly they stay,” he says. When he heard about the tourist who complained earlier this year, he says he found it “laughable.”
So what drives a modern woman (or man) to choose a gender-segregated beach? Micol Brusaferro is a relatively recent convert. She didn’t go to Pedocin as a child, but discovered the beach as an adult when she worked nearby.
“I went a few times in my lunch break and saw this really colorful reality,” she says. “There are lots of generations all together, there’s a complete freedom with your costumes — wear a thong or go topless because men won’t see — and I liked this special atmosphere.”
Brusaferro, whose books focus on Trieste’s eccentricities, has published no fewer than three about Pedocin.
“Like many other women, I go because it’s central, but you also know that if your costume isn’t perfect, your hair isn’t perfect, if you haven’t depilated perfectly, nobody will say anything because you’re among women, nobody will criticize you because they’re doing the same,” she says.
Although Miceli says that couples do go (and split at the entrance), Brusaferro has never been with a partner. For her, a trip to Pedocin is a female-centered ritual. She goes with friends but mostly she goes alone to read a book.
“It’s a symbol of the city and remembers the emancipation of women,” she says, simply.
“The tourist who criticized it wasn’t from Trieste and doesn’t know what it represents for Triestini. It’s not sexist; it’s a symbol of freedom. On either side, women and men do what they want. Here they talk loudly, swap advice, talk about intimate things. Maybe on the other side the men are playing cards with friends or are chatting. It’s always been very free here. Nobody wants to knock the wall down because there’s this tradition that continues and it doesn’t bother anyone.”
For Pizzi, El Pedocin has a special place in the heart of Triestini because of its history: “Its associations with the Austro-Hungarian empire, its cultural history and female independence.”
Although she’s not from Trieste, she has visited the beach. “It was great — I laid my towel down, nobody bothered me and I sunbathed for a bit. I was very happy. It was a special place — a beach of one’s own.”
As the beach gets more famous, the Triestini are set on it remaining as it is. Brusaferro says she now shares the shore with “troops of tourists” who’ve been drawn to Pedocin by guidebooks or watching influencer videos.
“People come out of curiosity, but you need to respect the rules — it’s a tradition,” she says.
When the beach hit the news this year, the idea of “Europe’s last remaining gender-segregated beach,” as it was termed, was seen by many as a negative. But, say the locals, that’s a limited interpretation. When the local paper surveyed residents several years ago, says Brusaferro, the overwhelming majority wanted to keep things as they were. Personally, she says, she wouldn’t go if the wall was knocked down: “It’d become a beach like all the others.”
“A lot of people don’t know much about the history of Trieste,” says Pizzi. “If women are happy with it, I don’t see why it should be changed. If you don’t want to go to a women’s only beach, you can go to the one next door.”
For Covacich, those learning about the existence of Pedocin this year have got the wrong end of the stick.
“When people say it’s the ‘last wall in Europe,’ it doesn’t mean it’s the last residence of bigoted morals; to me it seems that it’s a symbol of freedom, free from prejudice,” he says. “It’s definitely a bit bizarre, but Trieste is an eccentric city, a fusion of Austrian, Slovenian and Italian culture. If the wall was knocked down, it would be a way to flatten this difference.”
Miceli, the lifeguard, puts it simply. “People are happy, the beach is full, why knock the wall down?” he says.
“If you see it as a negative thing, you can go elsewhere.”
