Hurtling towards summer vacation inspiration, The Guardian has listed seven of Greece’s island and mainland coastlines among 40 of the ‘Best Beaches in Europe’, in an article lauding “the continent’s finest sands”. Readers are informed about how to journey to the beaches as well as where to eat or what to do once they arrive, and the Guardian includes key information on accommodations and noteworthy sights in each beach’s vicinity.

The selection combines well-known and highly popular Greek beaches, such as Elafonisi in Crete, where “even today these talc-soft sands 50 miles south-west of Chania are rarely crowded except in the height of summer,” Milos’ “lunar-like Sarakiniko, with its startling white rocks like chalky icebergs,” and Plaka in Naxos, with lesser-known and quieter beaches such as Karavostasi in Epirus, “with silk-soft sands and shallow waters”, Simos in Elafonisos, a “spectacular beach is shaped like a butterfly with two “wings” of fine white sand”, Fteri in Kefalonia and Vagia Bay in Serifos, which “features in myths about Perseus and was name-checked as a desirable destination in Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2015 film The Lobster”.

Almost on par with Greece’s beaches in The Guardian’s Best Beaches list are six fantastic beaches in Spain and sparser (from one to four in each country) listings for stunning and bucket list-worthy beaches in Croatia, Portugal, France, Montenegro, Ireland, Turkey, Albania, the Netherlands and Germany.