On the Mediterranean, the summer evening arrives with the light, not the clock. As the sun drops toward the water, the terrace cools. The table is not yet cleared; an unhurried gap opens in the middle of it. This is when the backgammon board appears. Because backgammon is not played to be finished — it is played to lengthen the evening.

Why the summer evening suits backgammon

A summer evening refuses to be rushed, and so does the game. The dice fall, a checker slides across leather, and talk moves back and forth between two players. Therefore the game is only a pretext. What matters is the time spent at the same table. Moreover, the tradition runs deep along these shores: for centuries, people treated backgammon as the language of unhurried conversation.

A tradition five thousand years old

The game itself reaches much further back. Historians point to the Royal Game of Ur, some five thousand years ago. The Romans called their version tabula. The Persians refined it. Then every coast of the Mediterranean translated it into its own dialect. In short, the game always did the same work: it carried the heat of the day into the cool of the evening.

Colours borrowed from the sea

Summer suits backgammon, because both ask for patience. Hand-finished leather warms in the sun. Over time it gains a patina, and it takes a mark from every season. Moreover, the colours come from the water: the blue-green of the coast, the warm tone of the sand. So once the set is on the table, the game moves to the centre of the evening. If you are choosing your first set, read our guide to how to choose a luxury backgammon set.

Keeping a summer evening

Then summer ends. The terrace closes, and the light withdraws early. Still, a well-made object remains. Years later, when you open the same set, you find more than checkers inside; every summer before is there too. In short, a summer evening is brief, yet the object that holds it endures. Perhaps that is the finest thing of all: you cannot buy a summer evening, but you can entrust it to an object you will reopen for years.