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The Best Beaches
The beaches and beach clubs worth crossing the sea for, from Pampelonne and Psarou to the Faraglioni.
Try "Saint-Tropez", "Positano", "truffle" or "Cyprus".
Home›Plan a Trip›Practical Guides›The Best Beaches
The beaches and beach clubs worth crossing the sea for, from Pampelonne and Psarou to the Faraglioni.
Spain and France
The best beaches of the Mediterranean are often the small ones: a cove reached by boat, a bay below a great hotel, a beach club where lunch lasts until five. These are the ones we would cross the sea for. Book the beach clubs ahead in July and August. Checked 31 October 2026.
The long beach that holds the most famous beach clubs on the coast. Le Club 55, run by the de Colmont family since 1955, is still the reference lunch for the yachts anchored offshore; La Réserve à la Plage, designed by Philippe Starck, is the beach restaurant of La Réserve Ramatuelle.
Cheval Blanc St-Tropez stands in a pine garden on the bay, minutes from the old port, with its own sandy beach below.
The beach of the Marbella Club, with its beach club and pier, and La Cabane, open since 1965.
Blue Marlin and Casa Jondal share the bay of Cala Jondal in the south-west; El Chiringuito at Es Cavallet, minutes from Ibiza Town, has a quieter, more refined following. Formentera’s turquoise water is a short sail away.
Turquoise coves below the pines, among them Cala Macarella, on an island that is a biosphere reserve.
Italy
La Fontelina, the beach club and seafood restaurant at the foot of the Faraglioni, opened in 1949 and still run by the founding families. Reach it by boat.
Le Sirenuse Mare, Le Sirenuse’s beach club on the bay of Nerano, opened in 2026 and open to non-guests daily from April to October, 25 minutes by boat from Positano.
The bay below Taormina, where the Villa Sant’Andrea, A Belmond Hotel, stands on the beach.
Emerald water and granite coves; Phi Beach, the clifftop beach club inside the 19th-century Forte Cappellini at Baja Sardinia, is known for its sunsets.
Greece, Türkiye and Albania
Nammos has been on Psarou beach since 2002, the yacht crowd’s favourite and the island’s most established daytime address. Scorpios, at the southern end of Paraga beach, is known for its sunset.
The Four Seasons Astir Palace has three private beaches on its own peninsula, thirty minutes from central Athens.
Maçakızı, the hotel and beach club founded by the Bodrum pioneer Ayla Emiroğlu on the bay; lunch on its deck is booked well ahead in August.
The turquoise coves and islets of the Mediterranean’s newest coast.
The Mediterranean Season Letter
Four letters a year, one for each season: the Mediterranean from spring to autumn, and Beyond the Mediterranean, into the Alps, in winter. The one best hotel to book, and the events worth crossing a sea for.
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