Where to swim: wild Mediterranean coves

The best swims we know are rarely the easy ones. They ask for a walk down a gorge, a kayak around a headland, or a scramble through a gap in the rock. What waits at the bottom tends to be the same: water so clear it reads as air, and a stretch of shore most cars never reach. Here are five we keep going back to, set across the basin from Provence to the north Aegean.

We have kept to places you can still swim rather than only photograph, and we have flagged the catch where there is one. Go early. By noon in August the boats arrive, and the quiet that makes these coves worth the effort is the first thing to leave.

1. Cala Goloritze, Sardinia. The showpiece of the Gulf of Orosei, reached on foot down a steep path from the Golgo plateau, or by boat with no landing allowed. A pale spire of limestone, the Aguglia, leans over white shingle and green water. Sardinia made it a natural monument in 1993. The trail closes at two in the afternoon and the beach clears by four, so set out at first light.
2. Stiniva, Vis. Croatia keeps its finest cove all but out of sight. Cliffs close to a gap barely two metres wide, then open onto a bowl of pale pebbles and still, clear water. The path down from the road is short and rough. Most arrive by boat from Komiza, which is exactly why the early hour, before the fleet, is the one to take.
3. Calanque d'En-Vau, Cassis. Between Marseille and Cassis the white rock drops straight into the sea in a run of inlets, and En-Vau is the one worth the sweat. High limestone walls, a thin beach, water the colour of bottle glass. Reach it on a steep path through the Calanques National Park or by kayak from Cassis. There is no shade and no kiosk, so carry your own water.
4. Cala Macarelleta, Menorca. The smaller, wilder sister of Cala Macarella, cut into the south coast and backed by pines. No road runs to it. You walk in along the Cami de Cavalls, the old bridle path that rings the island, and drop to a curve of white sand and bright, shallow water. Come outside July and August and the first swim of the day can be yours alone.
5. Giola, Thasos. Not a beach but a sea pool, a deep basin the rock holds above the open Aegean on the island's southern edge, near Astrida. The descent is steep and the swim is a contained blue eye, fed and freshened by the waves. People leap from the ledges. We would not, given how many crack their heads on it each year. Float instead, and let the sea do the work.