The main draw here is the beach, but the water can be polluted and the public areas are often unkempt. Some of the beaches at the southern end of the island, such as those at Alberoni, are an exception. If you want to stay closer to the vaporetto stops, you'll pay about €10 to hire a chair and umbrella in the more easily accessible and cleaner areas of the beach.
The Lido became a fashionable seaside resort around the late 19th century and its more glorious days are depicted (in admittedly melancholy fashion) in Thomas Mann's novel Death in Venice .
