Europe's top beaches of 2022 revealed (and other watery 'Bests')

SET A TOURIST to catch a tourist is, in these days of social media and online reviews, a holiday destination's best marketing strategy – although a few million euros' worth of publicity helps, too.

Marbella has achieved both, coming second in the European Best Destination 2022 poll and topping the list of the continent's 10 'Most Exclusive' – a selection made entirely through public votes, among those who have visited the idyllic sites, on the website founded in Brussels in 2009 in conjunction with the European Commission's EDEN (European Destination of Excellence Network) – and, by netting top-three slots, has earned advertising campaigns in the likes of Forbes, the Condé Nast élite magazine range, Yahoo and Geo, worth in excess of €2 million.

And the other annual poll, winning heaps of prestigious media coverage for those at the summit, is European Best Beaches 2022, showing the crème of coastal towns on the continent.

Of course, the very nature of it automatically excludes certain nations – Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and other land-locked countries are unlikely to be contenders – although these days, the trend towards inland and urban beaches means this is not a given. After all, a handful of Spain's blue-flagged beaches are a long way from the nearest coast or even in provinces or regions which do not have one; two of these are in Extremadura, and another is in Madrid.

But as the hitherto-unbeaten world leader for the most blue flags on its beaches – quite a feat, when you consider just how much coastline there is on much larger countries, many of which are established tourism hotspots – we would have been shocked if Spain had failed to enter this year's ranking on Europeanbestdestinations.com for its paradisical sandy shores.

So the fact Spain has a whole five on the leaderboard is nothing newsworthy.

'Best beaches' is, clearly, a highly-subjective assertion and, even though the list of 22 is hand-picked by people who have experienced them, visitors from outside the country might not know of too many of them. Your local coast might be completely off the tourism trail, or perhaps only known to staycation regulars, holiday-home owners or caravan enthusiasts, but it could be that, even allowing for your personal bias, it really is the closest to seaside heaven on the continent.

After all, the Spanish beach chosen among the world's top 25 on TripAdvisor – Mallorca's Playa de Muro – does not figure in the 'European Best Destinations', and quirky ones known more for their scenery, such as Sakoneta in the Basque Country and Gulpiyuri beach in Llanes, Asturias are two of the most unusual and oft-photographed in the country. 

Then there's the Almería-province beach which became scenes in the hugely-watched 1980s' film version of The Neverending Story.

Or Galicia's Os Catedrais, with its cathedral-shaped rocks, and a smaller version in Benitatxell, northern Alicante province.

But what we can promise you is that there's no chance of any beach making the 'European Best' list unless it's practically perfect, so heading for any of these five this summer is a very safe bet.

Playa de Bolonia, Tarifa, Cádiz province

Stretching along Spain's aptly-named Costa de la Luz ('Coast of Light') to the west of Gibraltar, Bolonia beach in Tarifa is described as a perfect choice for anyone seeking 'tranquillity' and to 'discover uncrowded wild beaches'.

Despite its natural beauty, though, this stretch of wheat-gold velvet and its crystalline, turquoise waters is very geared up to international tourism, meaning key facilities are close enough by – but you won't normally have to fight for towel-space, either.

According to the European Best Destinations site, from Bolonia beach, 'if you are lucky and the weather is clear you can even see the coast of Africa'.

Indeed, the province of Cádiz – which the site calls 'a dream destination' – is a key set-off point for a day-trip to Tangiers, Morocco. Grab a ferry from Algeciras, you can walk to the city centre from the port of Tangiers, have a good explore, and be back in Cádiz by dinnertime.

For those who love being near the sea but are not great fans of flopping about on the sands reading or doing nothing, the European Best Destinations article recalls that the Playa Bolonia is home to 'remains of a Roman settlement' – always an intriguing feature, wherever they're found.

Although the site recommends flying to Jerez de la Frontera, an hour and 20 minutes away by car, another option is to fly to Sevilla and take the train to Cádiz city.

This way, you can combine your beach break with a day-trip to Cádiz and a day or weekend in the splendid, typically-southern city of Sevilla, home to the world's third-largest cathedral and oldest bull-ring, among other attractions.

If you're travelling during high beach season, though, and Sevilla is part of your itinerary, take an umbrella with you. Not because it might rain – if it did, it'd be very welcome, as well as unusual – but to protect yourself from direct sunlight in one of Spain's hottest cities.

Bolonia beach is sandwiched between the first and third top-voted coastal enclaves in Europe, both of which are in the Portuguese islands of Madeira – Porto Santo at number one, and Seixal at number three.

Cala Mitjaneta, Ferreries, Menorca 

After Cala Goloritze in Baunei on the Italian island of Sardinia at number four, Spain completes the top five with this delightful little cove close to the larger Cala Mitjana, surrounded by pine forest and an officially-protected conservation area, with fine white sand and shallow waters, kept warm most of the year through being enclosed on three sides by raw cliffs.

Described by European Best Destinations as 'just like heaven' and 'just magical', the article warns that as it is 'small', you will 'have to get up early if you want to enjoy the quietness and romance' of it.

Another option is to get there in the early afternoon, typically between 14.00 and 17.00, when Spanish people are most likely to head home for lunch and northern Europeans most inclined to avoid the intense heat of the middle-of-the-day sun. Obviously, take an umbrella with you to ward off the UV rays, and slap on plenty of high-factor sunscreen.

Weekdays, rather than weekends, will give you more space, too.

Menorca, despite long having been an established sunseekers' hotspot and featuring in travel agency windows in a string of colder countries, is, nevertheless, one of the quieter, less-frequented of the Balearic Islands – largely because one tends to think of there being little else to do off the beach other than a quick stroll around its capital, Maó. 

Compared with Ibiza's globally-acclaimed nightclub scene, and Mallorca's wealth of historical and artistic attractions and family facilities, then possibly; but Menorca does, in fact, have plenty to see. It was once a British colonial territory and military and political hub, and major vestiges of centuries-old UK culture and rule remain very much intact; a complete tour of these will tell you a richly-varied story of life in both 18th-century Menorca and Britain in the same trip.

Going back even farther in time, the Talayotic settlements are prehistoric – around 300 dry-stone pyramid-like structures, some more cube-shaped, some resembling tables, are dotted throughout the island. They're thought to be Celtic in origin, and built between approximately 1500 and 1000 BCE (BC).

Given that the entire island is less than 60 kilometres long, you can take a 'Talayot tour' one day, a 'British tour' the next, and still have plenty of beach days.

Cala Sa Boadella, Lloret de Mar, Girona province

Spain does not reappear in the list until number 15, when a cosy little bay flanked by dense forest coating low-lying rocky hills blows every pre-conceived idea about the Costa Brava right out of the water – this lively, cosmopolitan coastal stretch along the mainland's most north-easterly province hides remote, unspoilt and peaceful bays in plain sight.

And it's hard to believe that the picture shown here of Cala Sa Boadella is in exactly the same Girona-province town as the one below it, a packed urban beach lined with hotels and seven-storey apartment blocks, shops and cafés, vibrant and cheerful and with heaps of atmosphere.

Which just goes to show that Lloret de Mar caters for visitors and residents with completely opposite tastes, as well as those who can't make up their minds and love both extremes on different days.

European Best Destinations describes the Cala Sa Boadella as a 'magnificent little beach overlooked by a small hut where you can eat with a view of the cove'.

It also reveals that half the beach is naturist and the other 'mainstream' or for people who like to keep their clothes on, with each side coexisting in perfect harmony but with enough of a divide that, if you're in the nudist part, you can keep clear of prying eyes and, if you're in the 'swimwear' section, you don't have to see what you'd rather not see.

Naturist beaches are not exactly everywhere in Spain, but there is generally at least one or maybe two along every 20- or 30-kilometre stretch of coast, and are considered a perfectly ordinary phenomenon; nobody would need to feel embarrassed at asking directions to the nearest one, for example, and nor do they cause sniggering or outrage when mentioned. After all, high summer in the Mediterranean is too hot for clothes, and sea water combined with relentless sunlight means bikinis and trunks literally rot after one or two seasons. Going naked, sometimes, allows you to wear either less often, so they last longer, as well as avoiding annoying tan-lines in the wrong places – white shoulder straps never sit well with a halter-necked top, or the other way around, and low-cut or 'hipster' jeans look a bit daft if they reveal a pale strip above them where your bikini bottoms blocked out the sun.

As well as being a mature sunshine holiday destination with optional tranquil bays for blocking out the noise, Lloret de Mar is steeped in stunning, ornate historical architecture and botanical gardens within its myriad of narrow lanes, and its fairytale Sant Joan castle above the beach cliffs means this is one of the best-loved of Spain's long list of Mediaeval towns in coastal provinces.

Platja de Blanes, Blanes, Girona province

Maybe we spoke too soon about the Costa Brava being a bustling beach-break high-living holiday haven. Yet another peaceful coastal enclave just south of the French border comes in at number 20 of the list of the '22 best of 2022' – but one with all the convenient facilities you might otherwise lament the absence of if you try to stay off the holiday-brochure route.

The main beach in Blanes is popular with snorkellers, particularly the Cala Bona cove, and with lifeguards, toilets, showers and an on-site restaurant, it's great for families.

This means it can get busy in high summer, but Mediterranean Spain is usually plenty hot enough for topping up your tan throughout June and September, which are classed as 'spring' and 'winter' respectively from a tourism industry point of view – in fact, September can be the hottest month of the year – so for relaxation without the crowds, either month is ideal on Blanes beach.

Also, it's lengthy enough that, if you take a stroll along it, you'll find other enclaves which European Best Destinations describes as 'secret beaches and coves'.

The Costa Brava is, in fact, a top choice for anyone who wants to live or spend their holidays on a coastline where they can hop between fun, lively and built-up areas and quaint, quiet and barely-touched beaches – even small villages with a beach.

Calella de Palafrugell, a working fishing village with just 733 residents as at the last census, is one of these – check out this and six others elsewhere in Spain in our article on coastal towns with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants. 

Laga beach, Urdaibai, Vizcaya province, Basque Country 

International tourists, especially those from central and northern Europe, may be most familiar with Spain's islands and Costas, but visitors from southern France are particularly fond of the much easier-to-reach-by-car enclaves in Asturias and the Basque Country which, like the Costa Brava, are close enough that they can almost be considered a 'staycation'.

For this reason, tourists from abroad during the past two summers since the pandemic have largely been French, given that they have not had to worry about flight availability or the restrictions imposed when crossing borders via public transport.

But if summer 2022 means a run on 'traditional' holiday bookings for northern Europeans, leading to travel agencies claiming all their slots for Spain are sold out, we can promise you that won't actually be the case – you just need to look beyond the brochure.

It's not difficult to find fully-equipped and easily-accessible beach holiday hotspots with hotels and tourism apartments in parts of Spain not normally advertised in, for example, a UK high-street agency or by a British tour operator, even in or close to the usual provinces frequented by sunseeking overseas visitors.

An alternative option, though, is to book somewhere hundreds of kilometres away from the bits you'd typically make a beeline for – such as Galicia, Cantabria or, as widely endorsed by the French, Asturias and the Basque Country.

The latter is where you find the fifth of Spain's 'Best Beaches in Europe' for 2022 – in Urdaibai, in the province of Vizcaya, or 'Biscay', the capital of which is Bilbao.

You'll still get hot, summerlike weather for chilling out on the beach, but it's not quite as sticky and humid in July and August as it can get further south, and you're less likely to have to endure sweaty 'tropical' nights – meaning a city tour of Bilbao itself will not be uncomfortable even in high season.

And as Bilbao is one of Europe's 11 least-polluted cities – combined with the fact that Spanish city-dwellers habitually seek to 'escape' in peak summer, and owning a second home in the countryside or on the coast is far more commonplace than it is elsewhere on the continent, meaning urban populations and their corresponding industrial activity and traffic decline dramatically in the warmest months – the home of Frank Gehry's iconic Guggenheim Museum promises clean air to go with its fascinating sights and unique cuisine.

Laga beach, in Urdaibai, 'will suit wild nature lovers' and 'surfers', according to European Best Destinations – especially as the rugged, tree-covered coastline is a protected nature reserve.

You can take a tour along the Urdaibai bio-reserve in anything from two days to a week or more, depending upon how long you want to spend savouring the dramatic, wild clifftop views and how many of the enclave's beautiful, quaint and traditional working fishing villages you visit – Bermeo, Mundaka, Elantxove and Lekeitio among them, the type where the cry of seagulls and the faint splish of moored fishermen's boats bobbing in the port form a backdrop to family-run restaurants and pavement cafés set in brightly-painted buildings.

San Juan de Gaztelugatxe is one of the Basque shoreline's most-visited little gems, and even if you can't face the 241 steps up to the hilltop chapel to ring the bell and make a wish, the view from the start of the climb is like something out of a fantasy film, a scaled version of the Great Wall of China wending its way up the rocks, with the waves lapping at either side.

You might have already seen it on your TV screen – it's one of a handful of iconic sites in Spain used for the cult series Game of Thrones.

Even though there's doubt as to whether Picasso's colossal, world-famous painting Guernica was, indeed, anything to do with the historic bombing of this Basque town in the second year of the Civil War, as initially believed, the title of the gigantic surrealist mural in Madrid's Reina Sofía Museum is enough to make Guernica, or Gernika in the regional language, equally as well-known internationally. So any tour along the Urdaibai biosphere coast includes an obligatory stop in Gernika, with a visit to its Peace Museum, and a selfie next to the replica of Picasso's trademark piece created from ceramic tiles in the town it was named after – especially given that you can't take one in the Reina Sofía Museum, where cameras are banned due to the potential damage to multi-million artwork on display.

Another de rigueur selfie is with Butrón Castle in the background – straight out of the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen, those who have seen it in the flesh generally assure us that it is far more spectacular and awe-inspiring than any of the multiple photos of it in circulation. You can't go inside, since it's privately-owned, but the outside is the bit you really want to see anyway. Check it out, along with some of Spain's other splendid castles, in our article here.

Buses leave Guernica on the half-hour for two of the Urdaibai reserve's most idyllic rural beaches – Laga, and Laia, the latter of which is, in fact, an enormous, half-mile-long (800-metre) dune that has risen in the middle of an estuary – and most visitors and locals strongly recommend the bus ride, given that parking spaces are hard to find at either in peak summer season.

Back to Laga beach – enclosed by verdant, sylvan mountain slopes, dramatic rock formations, shallow turquoise waters and an arc of golden sand, it's as beautiful from the viewing point above as it is from the ground.

Around 600 metres long, there's plenty of space on this raw, rural beach at the foot of Cape Ogoño, which means it's rarely crowded, despite its overwhelming popularity when the sun puts in an appearance.

'Best Blue Water Destinations'

Whilst the 'Best of' for 2022 lists are, clearly, an annual concept, the European Best Destinations site includes multiple rankings which are more or less permanent – from 'Best Family Holidays' to 'Most Romantic' to 'Best Art Nouveau', along with 'Best of' lists for a string of European countries.

Some overlap between the 2022 top beaches standings and 'Best Blue Water Destinations' is to be expected – and of Spain's three entries in the latter, two of them are in the former and deserve special mention.

Less specific, the 17 highest-ranked 'blue water' destinations – with Dalmatia, in Croatia, at number one and followed by the Algarve in southern Portugal and Sainte Maxime in France – includes the Costa Brava as a whole at number four.

This much-loved slice of the Mediterranean 'is about sun, beaches, coves surrounded by nature, refreshing dips in crystal-clear water, peace and calm, strolls along coastal footpaths, charming fishing villages', according to European Best Destinations.

Antalya (Turkey), Zakynthos (Greece), and the island of Gozo (Malta) come next, with the largest island in the Balearics, Mallorca, at number eight, shown with a photo of Cala Figuera beach, Santanyí. Rather than 'blue' water, the heavenly picture shows the sea as bright turquoise, and the article highlights Mallorca as a whole as being great for scuba-diving, with waters deep enough 'to moor a small boat'.

Next are Croatia's Brač Island, Marettimo on the Italian island of Sicily, Porquerolles on the French Riviera, the Italian island of Sardinia, and the Greek island of Kephalonia, at 13.

Having had one of its beaches nominated for this year's 'Best', Menorca in its entirety comes 14th as a top 'blue water' hotspot.

'A peaceful, unique natural oasis, packed with contrasts to discover', according to the caption, makes this least-densely populated of the Balearics 'a real paradise, washed by the Mediterranean'.

Referencing Menorca's 'harmony and diversity', the article mentions the 'rugged shores and reddish beaches of the north' and 'gentle relief' with 'golden sandy coves' in the south, 'broad sandy beaches' as opposed to 'small coves surrounded by pine groves', which 'all have one thing in common', being 'clean, crystal-clear waters'.

Menorca comes ahead of the island of Capri off Italy's Amalfi coast, the 'pebble-beach' city of Nice in southern France, and Villefranche-sur-Mer on the French Côte d'Azur.

'Best Sustainable Destinations'

In a list topped by northern Finland's Lahti lakeland region, Monte Isola in Italy's Brescia region and Cavtat in Croatia – but not ranked, so there are no actual winners - Spain has just one entry, which happens to be very watery.

Plenty of 'sustainable' destinations can be found in Spain; indeed, dozens exist in every province (the country has 52, so you can visit one a week for a whole year), but with only 10 in the European 'Best' section, there was little scope for more than one entry per country.

Still, Catalunya's river Ebro delta, the region's largest watery nature reserve and one of the biggest in the country, is very deserving as a national representative – especially as it is home to seven in 10 of the world's rare Corsican seagulls, thousands of flamingoes, and numerous other rare feathered species, including birds of prey.

Guided tours can be easily booked if you're not an expert ornithologist, although if you are, you could go off and explore under your own steam.

As European Best Destinations says: “Whatever the season, you will observe flocks of birds, both residents and reproductive.”

You can also watch the spring and autumn migrations, which are 'full of surprises', and the waterland 'teems with life' in winter, the article reveals.

And it's massive. The Ebro delta spans a whopping 320 square kilometres – that's over 79,000 acres, most of which is H2O, so we felt it deserved an honorary mention along with beaches and 'blue water' hotspots.

Spanish destinations hand-picked as the 'Best' in Europe are found in almost every one of the multiple selections, as well as within the EDEN network – but there are too many to mention here. Stay tuned as we showcase more of them over the coming months.