UK trumps France in Europe's best beach list
Oliver Gee - [email protected]
Published: 19 Feb, 2015 CET.
Updated: Thu 19 Feb 2015 11:35 CET
The UK is home to more of Europe's top beaches than France where only one of its famous "plages" just about squeezed into a ranking of the top 25 on the continent. Yep, we were pretty taken aback by this too.
France can lay claim to just one beach in a new unofficial ranking of Europe's 25 best beaches, and it came in last place. To rub sea salt into the wounds of the French, who head to the coast en masse every summer to make the most of "La Plage" (along with thousands of Brits), the UK, hardly known for its beach holidays notched up five in the top 20. The ranking is part of the 2015 Traveller's Choice awards from the TripAdvisor website, where users picked the Cote des Basques in southern France's Biarritz as the country's best. Travellers drooled over its "astounding views", "fantastic waves" and "especially beautiful sunsets", recommending a visit between June and September. But it still only made it to 25th in Europe, behind five locations in the UK. 
(Another look at the Côte des Basques) So where are these UK beaches that trounce every single beach on offer along France's often majestic 3,427-kilometre coastline? Well, two UK beaches cracked the top ten - Devon's Woolacombe Beach, came in fourth and nearby Weymouth Beach, came in 8th place. Elsewhere, Rhossili Bay, in south Wales ranked 11th, St. Brelade's Bay beach on the island of Jersey was 14th, and Porthminster Beach at St Ives in Cornwall came 18th. The number one spot in Europe went to Rabbit Beach in Lampedusa, Italy, followed by Playa de Ses Illetes in Spain and then Greece's Elafonissi Beach.You can read the full list here. If you've already committed to spending the summer holidays in France, then don't fret. Tripadvisor ranked France's ten beaches recently, and they look pretty amazing too (see below). Just not as good as the UK's apparently... 
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France can lay claim to just one beach in a new unofficial ranking of Europe's 25 best beaches, and it came in last place.
To rub sea salt into the wounds of the French, who head to the coast en masse every summer to make the most of "La Plage" (along with thousands of Brits), the UK, hardly known for its beach holidays notched up five in the top 20.
The ranking is part of the 2015 Traveller's Choice awards from the TripAdvisor website, where users picked the Cote des Basques in southern France's Biarritz as the country's best.
Travellers drooled over its "astounding views", "fantastic waves" and "especially beautiful sunsets", recommending a visit between June and September.
But it still only made it to 25th in Europe, behind five locations in the UK.
(Another look at the Côte des Basques)
So where are these UK beaches that trounce every single beach on offer along France's often majestic 3,427-kilometre coastline?
Well, two UK beaches cracked the top ten - Devon's Woolacombe Beach, came in fourth and nearby Weymouth Beach, came in 8th place. Elsewhere, Rhossili Bay, in south Wales ranked 11th, St. Brelade's Bay beach on the island of Jersey was 14th, and Porthminster Beach at St Ives in Cornwall came 18th.
The number one spot in Europe went to Rabbit Beach in Lampedusa, Italy, followed by Playa de Ses Illetes in Spain and then Greece's Elafonissi Beach.You can read the full list here.
If you've already committed to spending the summer holidays in France, then don't fret.
Tripadvisor ranked France's ten beaches recently, and they look pretty amazing too (see below).
Just not as good as the UK's apparently...
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