What makes a great family beach? Clean water for swimming, clean sand for sitting, sunning, playing or walking, and naturally occurring amusements like gullies, tide pools or rocks for climbing. Access to decent food and bathrooms and even showers are also a plus and, thankfully, relatively common in Europe, where I’m based. And, of course, stunning scenery and nearby towns with lots of activities certainly help.
For the past two decades, I’ve lived in Spain — part of the peninsula that’s been the Florida of Europe since the days of the Roman Empire — and have gotten to know quite a few European coastal areas. Now that these seaside trips include a husband and two kids, my repertoire has expanded considerably.
Below is a selection of my family’s personal favorites, from the calm, clear waters of Ålbæk, Denmark, to the white sands of Spain’s Balearic Islands.
Playa de Frejulfe
Asturias, Spain
Lush, verdant Asturias on Spain’s northern coast is the country’s dairy land, and since the less-fertile coastal areas were traditionally left uncultivated, there are fragrant pine (and, surprisingly, eucalyptus) forests that roll right up to the sand dunes of the region’s beaches.
Frejulfe beach in western Asturias is a sentimental favorite of ours as it is only about six minutes by car from my husband’s parents’ home near the town of Navia. For a decade, our kids only knew the broad crescent of the beach as the place where we’d bundle up in late December to walk off Christmas meals. But when the pandemic curtailed international travel, we got to experience the summer joys of Frejulfe — in bathing suits instead of coats and hats.
Like most Asturian beaches, Frejulfe comes with small waterfalls, caves and a narrow brackish river that snakes through the sand into the sea, giving smaller children who don’t like waves a safe place to frolic. Because of the neighboring forests, there is always plenty of driftwood to construct elaborate tents adorned with beach towels.
Depending on the tides, rock formations at the cove’s edges provide fertile territory for spying anemones, starfish, crabs and the occasional tiny sea horse.
Some beaches, like nearby Fabal, are reached by steep staircases or precarious paths that would be hard, if not unsafe, for smaller children, but Frejulfe has easy access and a large parking lot, not to mention a bustling chiringuito (beach shack restaurant) and surf classes for older children.
Nearby, restaurants fill the…
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