Weather in the world

Sun lovers are spoilt for choice in July, but there’s more to a hot holiday than sitting in your backyard while the neighbours look through the fence as their barbeque billows smoke all over you. If you’re lucky enough to have the beach in your back yard then I’m jealous, if not here are some standard and some fresh sunny, beach-y suggestions for July jaunts.A tropical island paradise is as dreamily distant from your partially concreted backyard as is imaginable, and definitely qualifies as a ‘proper’ holiday – and frankly it’s been a hard year so a proper break is more desirable than ever. Curaçao is well loved by divers for its waters as clear and blue as Blue Curaçao, but it also ticks all the on-land boxes of a paradise, clean beaches, coral reefs and a really unique culture and cuisine which a lot of visitors, concerned mainly with what’s happening below the waves, miss out on. The other islands in the ABC group, Aruba and Bonaire are similarly dreamy, as is Tahiti – it’s actually slightly out of season for Tahiti and the Bora Bora famed perfection of French Polynesia so you may pick up a deal as well as avoiding the crowds.


St. Restitude Beach

The Med. doesn’t have the same fine, soft sand and warm seas as the tropical island paradise of your dreams but it does have beaches which catch plenty of sun, have cool, clear waters, are lined with tempting cafés, bars and restaurants and if you live in Europe you can expect to pay less for the privilege. Some of the Med.’s most frequently recommended are St Restitude, Golfe di Sogno Beach, Pampellone Beach, Plage de Tahiti, Terracina and Cap d’Agde, all with nearby resort towns promising accommodation of all standards and English speaking comfort.

If as well as heat a dream holiday means having some space on the beach to yourself you may need to fly north for the summer to the long sunny summer days of Scandinavia. UK paper ‘The Times’ proclaimed Norway’s Vestvagoy in the people-scarce Lofoten Islands the world’s most romantic beach, while the sand dunes, sun and surf of Sweden’s Gotland and Fårö are a Swedish teenager’s summer Famous-Five-style rite of passage. Even cooler customer Germany has something hot to offer in July, Rügen Island, it’s like the ‘Nice of the North’ – says Christopher Isherwood.