ANYONE whose Spanish home is long motorway hours from the sea may well get fed up with reading all about how great the country's beaches are. After all, in terms of land area, Spain's coast is only an incredibly tiny part of its national territory; ignoring the middle bit and the people in it seems rather like limiting your travel review of the USA to the attractions of New York, or assuming that if you've been to London, you've seen the UK.
Well, reminding you of how great Spain's beaches are is a bit like pointing out New York has a Statue of Liberty in it, or that London is quite big with rather a lot of residents. So we won't.
But we will stress, though, that some of Spain's great beaches aren't even on the coast. They're frequently hundreds of kilometres away from it – people who have grown up right next door to them may never have seen the sea in their lives, except on TV.
And, just like on the much more famous Costas, 16 of these beaches that are anything up to half a day's drive from the sea hold blue flags, the last word in quality, cleanliness, and exceptional sunshine holiday facilities.
It's quite likely that, whether you live within 300 metres or 300 kilometres of the sea, you're not far from an inland beach which doesn't hold a blue flag because the town council opted not to apply – it's a tough selection process that takes incredible amounts of money and time to get through – and which is still nearly perfect. If you find out where it is, you might discover you enjoy it as much or even more than the seaside – no rip-tides, undercurrents or choppy waves that lead to the red flag being hoisted, no stinging eyes when salt gets in them, no jellyfish, and the depth doesn't vary from one day to the next.
Land-locked beaches are becoming the latest trend in Spain, but until they started applying for blue flags, they tended not to be very well advertised beyond their immediate surroundings. That will hopefully start to change, though, and to help the process along, here's a potted guide to the 16 that are now flying the flag for tourism excellence, and where to find them.
Southern Spain is, arguably, better known internationally for its coast – the region of Andalucía has more seaside provinces than anywhere else in the country. From east to west, Almería to Huelva, you'll find beach-lovers making a beeline for the Costa de Almería, the Costa Tropical (Granada province), Costa del Sol (Málaga province), Costa de la Luz (Cádiz and Huelva provinces), being the last stop before the Algarve, in the south of Portugal.
So, why Andalucía might need inland beaches is probably beyond the comprehension of many sun-hunting tourists.
But don't forget that three of the region's eight provinces – Sevilla, Córdoba and Jaén – are land-locked, and that even those which aren't, and which do have a seashore, are fairly large. Not everyone wants, or can, drive for an hour or so to their nearest beach, or has the time to do so more than a handful of days every summer.
Indirectly, in fact, inland beaches help in the battle against climate change: If you don't live within easy reach of a sea coast, enjoying the beach would otherwise mean getting in the car, which means emissions, which means global warming.
La Breña, Almodóvar del Río (Córdoba province)
The only non-coastal province in Andalucía to earn the élite award this year is Córdoba, where the town of Almodóvar del Río was something of a pioneer when it decided to create an artificial beach along the edge of its La Breña swamp.
A thick bank of golden sand next to waters shallow and safe enough for anyone to swim or paddle in was set up five years ago, and it proved to be more than just somewhere to cool down in Spain's hottest province in high summer – the La Breña beach created jobs.
Restaurants and bars were able to set up along it, holiday parks grew out of nowhere, and watersports companies saw their customer base increasing as beachgoers got keen to try paddle-surfing, kayaking, water-skiing, and taking sunset cruises on solar-powered catamarans.
Even a yacht club opened there.
Showers, and fixed umbrellas for shade, help ward off the heat on this beach which has won its first-ever blue flag, for itself and for its province.
Ardales (Málaga province)
La Breña is not the first, or only, inland beach to earn a blue flag in Andalucía. Even though the province of Málaga is world famous for its Costa del Sol, or 'Sun Coast', one of its best beaches is in Ardales, on the shores of the Conde del Guadalhorce lake. Its deep-turquoise waters, crystalline close to the wide, white-sand edges, are nestled into a nook in the hills, densely tree-covered and very green.
Although it looks like an unspoilt, secluded cove, or a bay that has sprung up in the middle of a shady forest, Ardales beach is popular for kayaking and paddle-surf, and has two restaurants, a hotel and a holiday park with caravans and apartments on its banks.
Ardales beach is close to one of Málaga's best-loved daredevil hiking routes, the Caminito del Rey – a footpath along the side of a cliff with a sheer drop of hundreds of metres (but with safety barriers, so the sense of danger is only artificial).
And if you needed any further persuasion, it's earned a 4.7-star rating out of five on Google.
Reached mostly by country roads once you get past Cártama on the A-7 motorway, it's just under 40 kilometres from Torremolinos as the crow flies.
Álava province, Basque Country
The far-northern region of the Basque Country, or Euskadi in its co-official language, is the only one of the 15 on the mainland where provinces do not have the same names as their capital cities. Whilst, if you tell someone you're going to 'Málaga' or 'Alicante', you'd have to clarify whether you meant the city or one of the towns up to 100 or so kilometres in three directions in its wider province, it's much easier to make the distinction in the Basque Country: There's no city of Guipúzcoa. The capital of the province of this name is San Sebastián, famous for its film festival and La Concha beach. Bilbao is the capital, not of the 'province of Bilbao', which doesn't exist, but the province of Vizcaya.
Of the region's three provinces, these are the only two on the coast; the third, Álava, of which the capital is the attractive, quaint tourist hotspot city of Vitoria, is land-locked.
But, bizarrely, none of the Basque Country's blue-flagged beaches are in its coastal provinces of Guipúzcoa or Vizcaya – not even La Concha. All three of them are in the province which doesn't have a sea.
Landa beach, Arratzua-Ubarrundia
Blue-flagged since 2016, Landa beach covers half a kilometre (500 metres) along the edge of the Ullíbarri-Gamboa reservoir – yes, the water supply source for taps and pipes in Vitoria and part of Bilbao.
Obviously, it goes through the full purification process before it ends up in household sinks in the two cities, but knowing you're swimming in tap water gives you an idea as to how clean and top-quality it is.
And it'll cause you to completely reassess your lifelong concept of what constitutes a 'beach': Thick, emerald grass with lollipop trees scattered here and there, and the only sand being just at the edge of the water.
Verdant, hilly, and wooded, it feels far more like the Lake District in the north of the UK than Spain – although with guaranteed hot weather and sunshine for the majority of the summer, of course.
Separate, cordoned-off bathing areas for children have been created, so you don't have to worry about your little ones going off into the lake and getting out of their depth – but, as a blue-flagged beach, lifeguards are on duty in case of trouble – and on-site open-air shower units mean you can rinse off before heading home, or just to cool down if you're not planning on going for a dip.
Footpaths and cycle paths throughout the Landa Provincial Park, as this nature reserve is known, mean you can explore practically the whole of the reservoir from the edges, and the Mendixur Birdwatching Park is an intriguing experience, even if you don't have specialist ornithological knowledge.
Moskurio-Garaio Norte, Barrundia, and Salurriaga-Garaio Sur, Elburgo
These are, in fact, two beaches, rather than one, but merge into each other – and, even though they belong to two different towns, those of Barrundia and Elburgo, the full extension of the pair combined gives an unbroken stretch of 2.6 kilometres (1.6 miles) of shore, which translates into ample space for residents and tourists even in high summer.
Another two inland beaches in the province of Álava that have hung onto their blue flags for the past six years, Moskurio is found in the northern part of the Garaio nature reserve, and Salurriaga in the southern part, and visitors – who have given them a 4.6-out-of-5 rating on Google – say they're great for walking and cycling as well as sunbathing, and that plenty of ice-cream vans which also sell sweets and soft drinks can be found there in summer and late spring.
Pets are allowed, as long as they are on leads at all times, but are not permitted to enter the water.
Similar to Landa, the Garaio Provincial Park beaches give the impression of a gigantic garden, or water meadows – like a deer-park with clover-filled grass instead of sandy shores.
Shallow, clean water that you can see the bottom of, and where you can go sailing and kite-surfing as well as safely swimming and paddling, holidays near the Garaio beaches will perfectly suit anyone who wants Spanish weather but northern European scenery; there's a very 'English' look to the landscape, but with summers guaranteed to be warm enough that you want and need to take dip in the lake.
Visitors have described both of these as being among the most beautiful and clean of all Spain's inland beaches.
Galicia
Spain's most north-westerly region and the one with the third-highest number of blue-flagged beaches has long been popular with residents in Madrid and large cities in the northern half of the country – its coastal parts include the idyllic Rías Baixas and Rías Altas, river deltas with pale-turquoise seas and white sand that look like a blend between the Caribbean and the Scottish islands. Three of the region's four provinces are on the coast – Pontevedra, A Coruña and Lugo – with the first of these having the second-highest number of blue-flagged beaches in Spain, and the second of these, jointly with that of Málaga, the third-highest.
Ourense, in the southern part of Galicia and bordering directly onto northern Portugal, does not have a coast, nor any blue-flagged beaches – yet.
Pontevedra and A Coruña have plenty of sea-shores to keep beach-lovers entertained, but has also gone in for river-beaches to suit those who live some distance from the coast, and one in each has scored a blue flag for 2022.
A Calzada, Ponte Caldelas, Pontevedra province
Holder of a blue flag since 2015, A Calzada is the only actual river to get a 'beach' flag in the whole of Spain.
It doesn't pretend to be a 'beach' as we know them – no sand in sight, and right in the heart of the woods, rocky riverbanks and natural waterfalls reflecting the greenery of the leaf-tunnels above them, with a 250-metre-long concrete platform complete with swimming-pool-type steps are a world away from the gold-and-turquoise sea-shores of the Costas.
Parts of the river are deep enough for diving, and others, shallow enough for paddling, and the river water is so transparent you can go snorkelling to admire the fascinating rock formations on the bed.
If you've ever been to México's Yucatán peninsula, you'll know what we mean by a cenote – a natural, freshwater pool in the heart of a rainforest. And A Calzada river-beach is probably as close to a cenote as you'll find in mainland Spain.
As Pontes Lake, As Pontes de García Rodríguez, A Coruña province
In contrast to A Calzada, As Pontes is a lake beach, closer in style to the ones in the Basque province of Álava and to Campanario beach in Badajoz (see below for the latter). If A Calzada is a woodland river and proud of the fact, As Pontes does, indeed, 'try' to be a bit beach-like, but retaining a good deal of its grassy lakeside picnic spot landscape at the same time.
It's Europe's biggest artificial lake, five kilometres (3.1 miles) long and two kilometres (one-and-a-quarter miles) wide, and walking all the way around the edge of it would add 18 kilometres (11.2 miles) to your step-count.
Which means that, although its deepest part is a scary 222 metres (728 feet and four inches), huge areas off its beach section are shallow enough to sit in without getting your waistband wet, and equally huge areas just about deep enough to swim in with no danger of ending up underwater when you put your feet on the bottom.
The water is described as pleasantly warm – and there's plenty of it. As Pontes lake, built on an old quarry when the mines that supplied the nearby electricity power station ceased their activity in 2007, took over four years to fill.
And in excess of 90,000 tonnes of sand were brought in to make up its half-kilometre (500-metre) beach, although a grassy strip alongside it, with picnic tables, benches and waste-bins makes it more country-park-like than coastal-looking.
Chiringuitos, or beach kiosks, serving drinks and snacks, as well as children's summer-camp facilities, water sports stations where you can learn paddle-surf or wind-surfing, and one of Europe's largest zip-lines – 200 metres long and 10 metres above ground, with top speeds of 30 kilometres per hour – mean there's plenty to do that doesn't have to involve topping up your tan or going for a refreshing dip.
The sandy shore is enormous, and flows straight into the wide-open grassy fields that slope gently up from it; it definitely feels like a 'real' beach, even if it doesn't have a 'maritime' air, as such.
Madrid
It's the second-largest country capital in the whole of the European Union, after Berlin (Germany), which means those not familiar with Madrid are normally stunned to hear it's home to mountains, nature reserves, ski resorts, small villages, and a beach. Although the Greater Madrid region does not extend too far beyond the actual metropolis, big towns and cities in Spain have a tendency to just 'stop', abruptly, at the edges; you can be right on the verges of a booming, throbbing, urban hub, and looking out at a view of endless countryside with no signs of civilisation on the immediate horizon.
This massive built-up area, home to around 6.5 million people, only comes into view on the motorways leading up to it about five kilometres outside of it; 'rural Madrid' is a genuine concept, and not a dichotomy at all.
And even though it's over 300 kilometres from the nearest sea, Madrid has 14 beaches – along the banks of the San Juan swamp – one of which holds a blue flag.
Virgen de la Nueva, San Martín de Valdeiglesias
Built in 1955 to supply water and electricity to the south-western part of the Madrid region, the San Juan swamp is a whole 1,606 acres of lake with 14 kilometres of beach alongside it.
Water-skiing, canoeing and surfing are frequent pastimes among visitors, and you can rent boats to go exploring along the entrance road to the Virgen de la Nueva beach, about five kilometres (3.1 miles) outside the town of San Martín de Valdeiglesias.
Kiosks selling ice-creams, drinks and snacks line the road, and you can break off from your sun-seeking to admire the Mediaeval bridge that links both banks of the swamp, and the ruins of the ancient hermitage chapel in honour of the saint who gives her name to the beach.
Surrounded by low-lying hills and rocky cliffs covered in forest, this vast waterland, with its sandy bed, has a huge, also sandy, beach area running into it – and yes, you do get waves. Not tides, like on the coast, and you won't see the surf crashing ashore, but a constant ripple in the transparent water does make it feel a little like the sea – or, at least, an estuary, or delta.
Crucially, the Virgen de la Nueva beach, and the lakeland itself, doesn't look or feel as though it was purpose-built for such functional reasons as powering plug-sockets and sink-pipes. It gives the impression that it's always been there, and its enormousness and openness gives you a real sense of finding yourself in the heart of something that's much, much bigger than you as a species.
Badajoz: The province with the highest percentage of blue-flagged beaches, but no coast
Extremadura is where you find the highest concentration of Spain's blue-flagged inland beaches – in fact, with a total of 12 in Badajoz along its 1,500 kilometres of 'shoreline', and eight of them decorated with this prestigious emblem, it's probably the only province in Spain where 67% of its beaches have achieved this kitemark.
Great work for a region that's so far from the sea that the nearest beach on the coast is in a different country.
From the provincial capital, it takes a good two hours to drive to the Costa da Caparica, in Portugal, about 15 kilometres outside Lisbon – until inland beaches began to pop up, this was the closest for those living in Badajoz and the majority of non-Portuguese sunseekers found on its sands were Extremadura residents.
This highly-underrated province is also where you'll find the splendid Roman metropolis of Mérida, where you can see for yourself how Europeans lived 2,000-odd years ago and how very little difference there was between their day-to-day and our own: Theatres and amphitheatres were their soap-opera, film and reality TV show venues, baths plugged into the mains fed by the aqueduct were their spa retreats, the chariot-racing circus was their Formula 1 track, with mosaïcs of sporting heroes and sculptures of rulers being the social media profile pictures of our celebrities and politicians.
Ordinary life across the vast Roman Empire is always eye-opening to explore, and Mérida is arguably one of the best places to do so.
Playa de la Dehesa, Cheles
One of Extremadura's first two beaches to gain a blue flag is the Playa de Cheles, otherwise known as the Playa de la Dehesa – a vast, flat, grassy field on the edge of an immense, wide-open lagoon, it qualifies as a 'beach' rather than a 'lakeside picnic spot' purely because of the strip of sand through the middle of the verdant lawn, and the thatched umbrellas set up on it for shade due to the near-absence of trees.
The part nearest the water is grass, and the sense of open space means it feels like a parkland – rather than forest-covered hills, it has a much more northern European appearance to it, especially with its spectacularly-emerald lawn.
If you've always fantasised about being able to go to the beach and finding the sand has been coated with turf and turned into a garden overnight, or if riverside relaxation with optional daisy-chains and clean, safe, refreshing waters to cool off in are your idea of paradise, Cheles' beach is your perfect holiday destination. But if you do miss feeling golden, velvety sand between your toes, there's a good seven-metre-wide strip you can set up stations on, to give you that 'real beach' vibe.
Orellana Freshwater Beach, Orellana la Vieja
That said, if you actually want to catch the rays on an real-life, bona fide, authentically-coastal and beachy beach, somewhere you could be led to blindfolded with no clues as to your destination and truly believe you'd been taken to the seaside when the bandage came off, Orellana Freshwater Beach is exactly that. You might eventually work it out when you realise the 'sea' is unusually calm for, well, a sea, and again when you go for a swim and realise your fingers don't taste salty afterwards, but the Playa de Orellana looks and feels exactly like the genuine article. Palm trees set up on the sands, a watery horizon without a giveaway mountain or forest out to 'sea', kayaks lined up on the shore, chiringuitos or beach kiosks serving drinks, ice-creams and snacks...the whole tropical postcard scene.
You can even go surfing there, too, just to enhance that sensation of being on the coast.
And you'll probably find yourself constantly consulting the map App on your phone to check your location, then googling 'Badajoz province' to make sure it really wasn't on the coast and that the whole land-locked description wasn't a hoax to keep tourists out.
If that was, indeed, Orellana's aim, it hasn't worked. It was the first-ever blue-flagged beach in the region, and a magnet for international visitors: Portuguese residents who live closer to this Badajoz village than to Lisbon's 'Playa de Extremadura', or Caparica, head east and inland to Orellana la Vieja for their sun, not-sea, and sand.
Alange beach
One of Extremadura's six first-time blue flags for 2022, clearly visible from the summit of the 9th-century castle on the Culebra hill – a strategic battle site during the early Muslim-Christian power struggles, beautiful ruins you can explore freely on foot – Alange is sort of a 'halfway house' between Cheles' and Orellana's beaches.
It's clearly a lakeside venue, and again, wide open, watery as far as the eye can see, with land-banks and woodland parts in places you wouldn't find them if you were looking out across the sea.
But an artificial sand beach set up on the shores, at least as big as the sandy part of a coastal beach, stretching far enough in either direction that you can't easily spot where it ends, is uninterrupted by grassland.
The lagoon starts off shallow, just like a calm, rippling sea lapping the shore, and gradually gets deeper as you wade out, and with a smooth, sandy bottom you can see easily through the clear water.
If you'd rather not have a sandy bottom yourself, part of the beach is an extensive grassy bank, but not intermingled with the sand section – so, if you're facing the right way when you're staked out on your towel, you can either feel as though you're in a rural lakeland, or on the seaside, whichever you prefer at the time.
Campanario
For those seduced by Orellana Freshwater Beach and seeking another 'coastal fake' that looks nothing like an inland bathing area, the Playa de Campanario resembles one of those idyllic coves in Mallorca, Menorca and Jávea (Alicante province), with white sands and deep-turquoise waters, enclosed on three sides by trees and with an 'unspoilt' feel to it – without the ornamental palms you get on those which are pointedly designed to recreate a tropical paradise.
Or one side of the beach does. The sandy bit is in fact a peninsula, like an island on all bar one side, so just around the corner from the 'cove' is a huge expanse of open water.
One of the big attractions of Campanario beach is that the sandy part actually looks natural – mainly because it is – rather than purposely constructed, and it's another with an on-site chiringuito, a very large one doubling up as a restaurant, with an outside terrace shaded by a thatched roof but open on all sides. You can grab a table overlooking the sandy shores, or with a view into a grassy woodland, according to which atmosphere you want to capture on the day.
Plenty of parking spaces, and toilets within easy reach, mean it's properly equipped for a 'holiday' experience, even though it looks wild and natural.
Calicanto, Casas de Don Pedro
Another beach on the banks of the vast Orellana swamp, but unlike the Orellana Freshwater Beach, the Playa de Calicanto in the nearby town of Casas de Don Pedro is more 'riverside' than 'seaside'. Similar to Cheles, it's largely grassland, with a strip of sand along the edge of the water – so you'll feel as though you're in a lakeland picnic spot when you're sunbathing, and on the coast when you're paddling.
A chiringuito, a separate shower and toilet zone, thatched parasols and ample parking mean it's highly convenient; rural though it is, all the facilities for a beach catering for holidaymakers are right there on site.
Whilst it's another vast, open space, like Cheles and Alange, the Playa Calicanto is just next to a eucalyptus woodland for extra shade.
Casas de Don Pedro itself is very worth the detour, with its stately architecture, and the neighbouring village of Puebla de Alcocer is home to a particularly unusual attraction: The 'Giant Museum', a tribute to its tallest resident.
Agustín Luengo Capilla was probably one of the loftiest people on earth, in fact, in all time – and especially in his own time – being a highly-conspicuous 2.35 metres (seven feet, seven-and-a-half inches) tall.
Isla del Zújar, Castuera
Close to this huge rural leisure complex is the town of Villanueva de la Serena which, from the May 2027 local elections, will be one half of a brand-new city after it merges with neighbouring Don Benito – home of, among other delights, a classic car museum.
The Isla del Zújar is a green island in the middle of a massive lagoon, replete with footpaths for country walks, viewing points at between 380 and 390 metres up, camp sites, guest houses and popular angling spots.
Only a tiny part of it is a beach, but it certainly doesn't look tiny when you're on it – it's an enormous sandy shore with wooden walkways and volleyball nets on the same level as the water, an inflatable mini-pier for children, kayaks, shower units in the middle of sand, and the usual thatched parasols.
A small, dense copse in the background offers shade among the trees, with softly-undulating grassy hills behind it.
The water, sky-blue with a sandy bed, would look just like the sea if it wasn't for the land-banks and trees on the horizon – imagine your local seaside beach where the actual sea has been snipped out and a huge freshwater lagoon sellotaped into the slot it left behind; Isla del Zújar beach is a complete hybrid between the two landscapes.
It's definitely 'beachy' enough that you won't miss the coast, and will eventually forget you're not by the sea.
Pets are welcome on the beach and anywhere within the Isla del Zújar complex, as long as they remain on leads.
Espolón-Peloche, Herrera del Duque
Here on the banks of the river Guadiana, you can have several cakes and eat them all. There's enough water about that three different bathing areas have been created – one with a concrete surface, so you don't get covered in sand on a windy day, a sloping platform cut into tree-covered mountains and with umbrellas and paddle-surf boards for hire; one that's grassy and completely natural-looking, at the foot of the forested hills; and one which is two-and-a-half acres of sand which, according to the town hall's description, is 30 centimetres, or a foot thick.
The latter is an open cove, flowing seamlessly into the trees and hills, with shaded picnic areas on the edge, and even a zip-line across the 'sea'.
Huge wooden ramps on all beaches allow for small or medium-sized boats to be launched, and, unusually but very invitingly, a half-kilometre (500-metre) circular walking route around the edge of the swamp is totally lit up after dark, so you can safely go out on a refreshing night hike in high summer.
Along this route, over 200 ornamental trees have been planted, and numerous benches set up so you can stop for a rest and to breathe in the clean, rural night air every few paces.
A drinks-and-tapas kiosk on a small hill – for the views – a children's park with swings and slides, both with plenty of lighting after dark, trees for shade and benches for chilling out, mean a visit to Espolón-Peloche 'beach' does not have to be just about sunning oneself.
Talarrubias-Puerto Peña, Talarrubias
Set in the Puerto Peña nature reserve and overlooked by the hilltop castle in Puebla de Alcocer (the one with the 'Giant Museum'), you might be forgiven for thinking you were in the middle of the Amazon rainforest rather than deep in Spain's rural west. This is vast lagoon country, wide river set between dense banks of trees, sailing boats and small engine-powered boats moored next to wooden jetties, and dust-track roads with maps and information signs.
You can take a short river cruise, stop for drinks and lunch in a wooden hut on the very edge of the water, or wade into the shallow lake from the sandy slope at the edge of the forest.
More watery-woodland than coastal, it feels the least of all like being at the seaside, and you don't get the impression of being in a lawn-covered country park, either. Talarrubias beach has much more of a sense of descending deep into the bowels of the tropics, hiding out in the heart of the jungle away from civilisation, and reconnecting with nature.
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