Beach reality check
Short answer: The photos show turquoise water. They don't show the 300 steps back up, the pebbles, the cliff that puts the beach in shade at 3 pm or the water that is out of your depth after two steps. We measured 532 of the best-known beaches around the Mediterranean and Portugal.
Amalfi Coast and Positano
20 beaches
Capri and Sorrento
7 beaches
Ischia and Procida
8 beaches
Cilento
10 beaches
Taormina and east Sicily
14 beaches
West Sicily and the Egadi Islands
14 beaches
Aeolian Islands
6 beaches
Sardinia
36 beaches
Puglia and Salento
22 beaches
Tropea and Calabria
6 beaches
Cinque Terre and the Italian Riviera
14 beaches
Tuscany and Elba
10 beaches
Côte d’Azur: Nice, Cannes, Saint-Tropez
22 beaches
Marseille and the Calanques
8 beaches
Corsica
18 beaches
Mallorca
24 beaches
Menorca
14 beaches
Ibiza and Formentera
18 beaches
Costa Brava
14 beaches
Barcelona and Sitges
8 beaches
Costa Blanca
10 beaches
Costa del Sol and Cádiz
14 beaches
Canary Islands
15 beaches
Algarve
22 beaches
Lisbon coast: Cascais, Sintra, Arrábida
10 beaches
Santorini
8 beaches
Mykonos
12 beaches
Naxos, Paros, Milos and the Cyclades
14 beaches
Crete
22 beaches
Zakynthos, Kefalonia and Lefkada
16 beaches
Corfu
11 beaches
Rhodes
8 beaches
Halkidiki
8 beaches
Dubrovnik, Korčula and Mljet
10 beaches
Split, Hvar, Brač, Vis and Makarska
18 beaches
Istria, Krk and Zadar
7 beaches
Montenegro and the Albanian Riviera
8 beaches
Malta and Gozo
8 beaches
Cyprus
10 beaches
Turkish coast: Bodrum to Kaş
8 beaches
How we measure it
Sun and shade come from the sun's position and the skyline around each beach, measured every 4° of compass direction from a 30 m elevation model out to 6 km. The climb back up is the height difference between the beach and the nearest mapped car park or bus stop (about 0.17 m per step). Water depth comes from the EMODnet seabed model; surface, beach clubs, toilets and showers from OpenStreetMap; sea temperature is the 1991–2020 average from NOAA OISST and waves the 2015–2024 average from ERA5. Prices are not shown: they change every season and differ between clubs.
When it is updated
Map data checked 7 Nov 2026; next check 1 Dec 2026 (monthly). Sea averages are refreshed every January. Sun and shade are calculated for any date you pick.