On the beach on Saturday between 6 and 7 p.m., teenagers are practicing back flips, cartwheels and handstands. One boy is teaching another how to do these.

Not far from this, a circle of boys keeps a soccer ball in the air for a long time with heads, knees and feet keeping it aloft. In another cluster, girls are twisting in dance moves with each other, and laughing as they fall on the sand. A couple of girls practice leaping from kneeling to standing, using a sudden jerk of their arms.

In yet another clump, boys and girls stand around talking. A girl teases a boy, and he chases her away from the group. Then the two laugh and talk.

We wonder if they are a “couple,” in the high-school style. Or is this the peer-group-socialization phase for teenagers in this beach town, at this time of year?

Hundreds of little umbrella holders are poking up in arrays around the beach ready for the coming season. But it is the kids’ beach for now.

As we sit on a low wall bordering the beach, we remember “hanging out” when we were teenagers 50 years ago. Teenagers pair up or hang out in groups everywhere, of course. But it looks like these teenagers have a really good thing going.

No cellphones. No adults around to worry about them. No bullies or outcasts, as far as we can tell. No organized sports practice.

Later, we imagine, they will be sitting around a family table for a home-cooked Saturday night dinner that might last for hours.

We don’t know. But what we can see is that they’re all in good shape, physically. Not weight-lifting shape. Just healthy, athletic bodies. Only one of the 50 or so kids we can see seems the slightest bit stout. He’s the one in his group who keeps his t-shirt on, but belonging in the group as any of them.

Is it their Mediterranean diet, in contrast to so much processed and fast food American teenagers consume? Is it so much walking and biking, between taking buses and trains everywhere? Or is it just being Italian teenagers free to hang out together on a Saturday evening as the sun angles down in the west over their unique country?