Stay at: Can Marti, an agroturismo on a working organic farm that produces its own electricity using solar panels. It's a 15-minute drive from the beach, in a remote valley. + 34 971 333 500; canmarti.com. Doubles from €130.
2. The Curonian Spit, Lithuania
A narrow finger of land poking into the Baltic Sea, the 98km-long Curonian Spit is one of Europe's more unlikely beach destinations. Reached by a 10-minute ferry crossing from the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, this peninsula of shifting dunes and pine forests, where wolves and moose roam, is largely undiscovered by foreign tourists.
Stay at: The Kursmariu Vila in the village of Preila. The wooden guesthouse won't win any prizes for interior design but the welcome is warm and you can sit out on the small wooden pontoon in the back garden overlooking the lagoon with a glass of cold beer and a plate of bream prepared in the family's own smokehouse. Baltic Holidays (0870 757 9233; balticholidays.com) tailormakes holidays to Lithuania.
3. Caños de Meca, Spain
The beach at Caños de Meca curves inland from the Cabo de Trafalgar. Canos de Meca has become a well-known hippy hangout on Spain's wind-whipped Costa de la Luz. The beachfront is wonderfully underdeveloped, save for the dreamlike La Jaima, a giant tented structure that cascades from the road down to the sand. Inside, you'll find a superb oriental restaurant and killer mojitos, and, when the mood grabs the locals, impromptu parties that spill out on to the beach.
Stay at: Los Castillejos, which has bungalows sleeping two from €50pn. loscastillejos.com.
4. Barleycove, County Cork, Ireland
The beach, with its surrounding dunes and lagoons, is a designated 'special area of conservation' – look out for cormorants, mute swans and herring gulls, and a landscape dotted with wild pansy, lady's bedstraw and pale dog violets.
We found it by accident on a long drive out to Ireland's most south-westerly tip on the Mizen Head peninsula (worth a trip to see the cliff-top lighthouse). The nearest towns are the picturesque fishing village of Crookhaven and charming Goleen.Both are grand spots for a post-swim pub warmer and pack of Tayto crisps.
Stay at: There's a holiday caravan and camping park right near the beach or you could stay at Barley Cove Beach Hotel or hire self-catering cottages.
5. Cap Ferret, France
Cap Ferret sits at the bottom of the The Lège-Cap Ferret peninsula, a long thin stretch of sand, pine trees and 10 small oyster villages, an hour's drive from Bordeaux. On the wilder Atlantic coast, the dunes and beach eventually evaporate in a shimmering heat haze and the sand is so fine and so deep it squeaks under foot and faces the towering Dune du Pilat, the largest sand dune in Europe. Here parents and children wade through tidal pools and salt marshes hunting for crabs with Monsieur Hulot-style nets - a remembrance of summers past.
Stay at: Hotel Oceane, 62 Ave de l'océan, Cap Ferret, +33 05 56 60 68 13. Simple cabin-style rooms arranged around a courtyard just a few minutes' walk from the beach. Doubles from €51.
Scopello, on the west coast of Sicily, couldn't be more idyllic if it tried. A pretty stone village, complete with old men in black berets and a sweet gelateria. A 20-minute walk away is a tiny cove with sand the colour of vanilla ice-cream and minty clear water. It's overlooked by a disused tuna-processing plant (the area is famed for the Mattanza, the annual ritual slaughter of tuna off the Egadi islands) and towers of rock.
Stay at: Nearby agriturismo Tenute Plaia from €130 per double B&B, +39 0924 541476, plaiavini.com.
7. Three Cliffs Bay, Gower, Wales
It is the beach where, after trailing single file up an overgrown sandy path that scooped us up on to a grassy headland, we all stopped to coo at the gorgeousness of the little U-shaped golden cove.
It's hard to reach as it is only accessible via a path through woodland from Parkmill, or down from Penard, so was pretty much deserted, and, in high season, it's never as busy as the Gower's bigger, more popular stretches of sand. On the cliffs above is Penard Castle, a ruin offering a perfect picnic shelter with Michelin-star views, and from here, if you can face the walk back up.
Stay at: Eastern Slade Farm Campsite, 07970 969814, from £8-12 per pitch per night, depending on size of tent.
8. Sopot, Poland
A pristine beach so vast that it never gets crowded, even in high summer. Once the playground of the Prussian aristocracy, the city has been Poland's most fashionable resort for almost a century. And since the end of the cold war, it has become its party capital, too, with a superb clubbing scene and a busy, boozy bar culture. Try Club Mandarynka in town or Copacabana Beach Club, which started life as a beach shack and is now an all-night disco complete with swimming pool.
Stay at: Villa Sedan (+48 58 555 0980; sedan.pl). Doubles from £45.
9. Egremni, Lefkada, Greece
There is a reason why Greece has so many blue flag beaches – with over 15,000km of coastline. Egremni beach on the Ionian island of Lefkada is a perfect example. Climbing 350 or so steps down a dramatic cliff face deposits you on a long, pristine beach. The water is that perfect Mediterranean blue, almost as if it had been painted, and the pebbles get finer as you near the water's edge until they feel like sand.
Stay at: Vassiliki Bay Hotel, a three-star, 24-room hotel near a fishing village, and a good spot from which to explore the island's beaches. hotelvassilikibay.gr.
10. Warnemünde, Germany
It's not the most perfect beach in Germany but Warnemünde offers a great holiday experience for anyone wishing to sample Deutschland's bracing Baltic coast - a white sandy beach, old-fashioned wicker chairs, known as Strandkörbe, and smoked fish. During my visit I asked one sun-browned kiosk-owner why he swam trunkless. He paused, then replied proudly: "In East Germany, we didn't have trunks." Even in summer the sea - known by Germans as the Ostsee- is bitingly cold. For me, a five-minute dip was enough.
