A cliff-top bar features thrones carved out of stone, gazing out over crashing waves next to a swimming pool perched on the edge of a sheer rock face, while steps lead down to a private sandy beach.
Calle Sevilla 6, barbadillo.com, tours 11am (English), noon and 1pm (Spanish), €6pp Windsurfing, kite surfing, and surfing, Tarifa The heady combination of strong winds, warm winters and extensive sandy beaches have established Tarifa as a top destination for year-round wet fun.
35 avenue George V, Etretat, +33 2 3528 8497, etretat-hotel-angleterre.com, doubles from €69 The vast bay where the Somme river comes out into the sea is one of France's most bewitching wetlands, and overlooking this sandy horizon is the spectacular Tourelles hotel.
7 alleé du Jardin Madame, Villerville, +33 2 3187 2022, bellevue-hotel.fr, doubles from €97 Lion-sur-Mer on the Côte de Nacre, the "pearl coast", resembles an Edward Hopper landscape, with its long sandy beach marked by an archaic lifeguard's lookout.
Breakfast is taken at a civilised hour at the edge of the pool and the rest of the day is given up to the garden or the private sandy beach, which is reached through a tiny door in the walls.
"The Australian Flatback lives entirely in waters close to shore and sandy beaches, making them highly vulnerable to coastal port developments and shipping.
At the end of the day, we would head, sandy-footed, to the nearest restaurant, knowing that at every one there would be a cabinet full of fresh seafood to choose from – bass, bream, salmon, lobster, prawns, crabs, goose barnacles, clams … We never ate the same thing twice.
There are pools both ornamental and for swimming, and detached cottages with sandy paths to the beach.
