The fantasy does exist though, and I have the photograph to prove it. To be honest, I had to dash off the ferry first to make sure those sands were unsullied by human footprints, but there were only about 40 day-trippers behind me, and that broad expanse of beach ensured there was space for everybody.
The location is the Cies Islands, a relatively obscure archipelago off Spain’s northwest coast. It’s a destination that by virtue of some peculiarly sensitive protective measures, including a daily limit on the number of visitors, coupled with the fact that those waters are the bracing Atlantic rather than the sultry Mediterranean, is always going to be far from the maddening crowds that characterise most Spanish shores.
There are three islands in this group. The southernmost Illa de San Martiño, with its broad crested ridge, is preserved as a bird sanctuary, with access limited to ornithologists. The others, Monte Agudo and Illa do Faro, join at a deep green lagoon exposed to the Atlantic on one side with the beach connecting them on the other.
This has been an obscure paradise protected by its national park status for decades, something of a secret even in Madrid, where hedonists scour their Iberian maps in search of the next unspoilt beach. Good fortune and assiduous protection by the local community have maintained its beauty.
The Prestige oil tanker spill four years ago threatened to destroy the islands’ pristine environment. As it turned out, they acted as a kind of defensive screen covering the Ria de Vigo estuary, and kept the slick clear of the mainland coast. The islands’ Atlantic side was affected badly and the wildlife suffered, but the clean-up operation has been impressively thorough, while the beaches facing the mainland remained relatively unscathed. Arriving on the first ferry in the morning, their gilded expanse shows not a single black stain.
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There isn’t a great deal to do on the islands except surrender to their blissful setting, although you can easily while away the hours doing just that. You can recline on those delicate sands, head to the rocky cove at the southernmost tip, wade out to disturb the teeming shoals of fish, scuba-dive down to say hello, or hike a little around the pine-fringed paths on the Atlantic edge, breathing in air that feels like it must be packed with vitamins.
Most of the Spanish visitors make the ferry trip laden with a traditional merienda picnic. They explain that the beach bar and the camp-site restaurant are the only places to find refreshment on the islands, and charge inflated prices accordingly. This is a little unfair, as the snacks and drinks on offer are hardly exorbitant, but you suspect that the locals are just making excuses for their lavish hampers stuffed with ham, chorizo, chilled cava, olives and crusty Galician mollete bread.
It is possible to camp overnight in the official site during summer, but groups of Spanish scouts and youth clubs can make this a less-than-restful experience. It’s more advisable to make your base on the mainland. The city of Vigo is an acquired taste, a busy fishing port bedevilled by its ugly tower-block housing and a seemingly endless road-improving project. A quick trip to its traditional oyster stands by the ferry port is worthwhile though. The ostrera fishwives sell their molluscs at rock-bottom prices, although, by some bureaucratic anomaly, you have to buy a slice of lemon from the bar behind them. The port here is the start of one of Spain’s great food chains, as the Atlantic catch and local shellfish are whizzed eastwards to appear in Madrid tapas bars by lunchtime.
Across the estuary, the Morrazo peninsula is eminently more beautiful. On the northern coast, the scruffy but friendly town of Bueu mainly recommends itself by virtue of a summer ferry service to the Isla de Ons, a rougher cousin of the Cies, with a wilder, cooler environment.
Ons is inhabited, at least seasonally, by a cluster of fishermen, and has beautiful beaches that rival those of the Cies, but always seem at least three degrees cooler. It is probably a more rewarding island for the active, with a variety of footpaths around its perimeter, but it has the same serenity as the Cies, the same sense that, despite being only a few miles from the Spanish shore, this is a retreat from civilisation.
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Back on the mainland, the lively fishing village of Cangas is gently mutating into a seaside resort and makes an ideal base, with the ferry port offering trips to Vigo and the islands, as well as a number of unpretentious restaurants and bars.
The specialities here tend to revolve around shellfish or the local signature dish, pulpo a feira. Boiled octopus is considerably more tender than it sounds, the white meat dressed with just a little oil and a dusting of sweet and piquant pimenton, the distinctive Spanish variant of paprika. Served on the obligatory wooden plate, pulpo is the ubiquitous flavour of the Atlantic coast.
To the west of Cangas lies a stretch of beaches almost as gorgeous as those of the islands, and nearly as deserted. A stroll along the pine-fringed dunes takes you to the expanse of Praia de Nerga, marked by an imposing boulder bathing out to sea.
A few yards through a discreet fringe of woods will find the unwary stumbling onto Praia de Barra, a secluded stretch of sand that is generally regarded by the cognoscenti as the northwest’s finest nudist beach.
You can stop for the all-over tan, or blush becomingly and scurry westwards towards Donon, where the land begins to run out and the waves get a little more imposing. A couple of miles further brings you to the windswept cape, and the last beach on the southern shore of the peninsula, Praia de Melide. The odds are that you will have this sublime inlet and its lighthouse all to yourself. To the south you can see the tempting northern edge of the Cies, seeming almost within touching distance from the cape.
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This is the second-best view of the islands. The best comes from the ferry’s stern as it heads back to the mainland. The wake meanders, white against turquoise, back towards the beach, with the forests looming above it.
It offers a quiet promise that you can always go back, and that beach won’t have changed. There won’t be a multi-storey conference centre, a golf course or designer spa; just sand, that rough beach bar and the birds.
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Details: British Airways (www.ba.com) and Iberia (www.iberia.com) fly to Santiago de Compostela from Edinburgh and Glasgow via London from £115 return including tax. From here there are regular trains to Vigo (see www.renfe.es). The 1½ hour journey costs from £7 return.
Ferries sail to Ons from Bueu (four daily), and to the Cies from Vigo (nine daily), Baiona and Cangas (five daily), between June and September. The return fare costs £7 to Ons and £10 to Cies (www.mardeons.com).
Cies campsite (00 34 986 687 630) provides the island’s only accommodation. There is a free campsite on Isla de Ons between June and September. In Cangas, Hotel Airiños (00 34 986 304 000), five minutes’ walk from the ferry port, has comfortable doubles from £25 in high season. In Bueu, Hostal Incamar (00 34 986 390 026) has doubles from £30