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Installment number two of my attempt to chronicle our naturist travels as I go about sorting through the thousands of photos we’ve collected over the years… Two big events in 2004: We bought a new digital camera (our first Canon Digital Rebel), and we got away for almost two weeks without the kids to explore […]
This summer marked our first visit to Mallorca, but most certainly not our last. Having read about Skinny Dippers resort for years, we finally found our way to this beautiful little hamlet near the south shores of this island in the Balearics, off the Spanish coast near Barcelona.
Of all the naturist places we’ve visited, I have to say that this one is truly unique – in a good way – largely defined by what I came to refer to as the “Grant and Jordi Show.” Grant and Jordi are the owners/innkeepers of this classy little resort “for the discerning naturist,” now in its second edition. They began with a smaller inn down the road, but expanded to this property with twelve rooms a few years ago. Apparently that is going so well that one’s failure to book a year in advance may well mean you don’t get your dates, or maybe, you don’t get in at all. There is clearly a devoted following that makes this their one stop nakation destination each and every year. Now we know why.
Famous map by Grant
Most of the rooms are in a beautiful two story finca that was originally built as a home for a guy long on money, but short on time to absorb the qualities of the simple life in the country. That, along with a few adjoining apartments make up a lovely selection of beautiful apartments with unusually spacious bathrooms. Perhaps the nicest accommodations we’ve had in a naturist venue anywhere!
But what really makes the place unique is the innkeepers themselves, attentively looking after each guest with humor and charm, eager to personalize each guest’s holiday experience. Grant is famous for his hand drawn maps to local naturist beaches and various tourist attractions, usually doodled on the back of a scrap of paper, but acutely accurate. (You can read about our naturist outings in a previous post should you wish.) If you desire to dine in, meals are served on one of two verandas where guests dress – or not – according to the evening temperatures. Into the new trend of gourmet dining au naturel, skip London and Paris and head straight for Mallorca.
Beach combing
Over the course of our stay, the communal meals made it nearly impossible to remain completely anonymous, unless you should choose to dine elsewhere or alone. We made many new friends from Great Britain, along with those from Switzerland, Norway, the Netherlands, and Sweden as well. Lots of lively and convivial banter in the midst of Brexit and the US Presidential Election. But what truly impressed us about Skinny Dippers is how our hosts worked so diligently (and discreetly) to maintain the calm and welcoming environment that creates something of a familial sense about the place. In fact, during our stay, there was an incident where guests had arrived that were not quite in sync with the ambiance of this particular resort. (You’ll need to read between the lines on that one.) This was handled quickly and discreetly, and suddenly, they had chosen to make an earlier than anticipated departure. What Grant and Jordi have created here is something very special in the naturist holiday realm, and they are most definitely committed to protecting that investment for their most valued clients. No wonder their customers are so loyal.
So we have already made our reservations to return next year. Pool gravity made it difficult to get dressed and get out to see as many sights as we might have hoped, especially if it involved donning clothing. My only reticence about talking up the place on social media is that I suspect it will become increasingly difficult to book a room with each successive year. To that end, it seems there are plans underway to reopen the original resort, this time as self-catering apartments. Staying there means you’d miss out on the Grant and Jordi Show, but I suspect it will be fabulous in its own right. I can’t imagine any endeavor put up by these two naked entrepreneurs to be anything less than first rate.
Thanks Grant and Jordi, for such a welcoming introduction to Mallorca. We look forward to the food, the wine, and the laughter again next year.
So I suppose the first thing the geographically challenged naturist would want to know about Mallorca is that it is one of the Balearic Islands, which happily enough for naked people, is part of Spain. Despite the explosion of expansive naturist centers in France, and the mass exodus of naked Germans each summer to the Istrian peninsula in Croatia, Spain has been moving into the lead as the place where it’s essentially “legal to get naked anywhere,” as long as it’s not offensive to the general public. Apparently, this policy gained such widespread publicity that the good people of Barcelona finally had to make their own policy, forbidding people to walk around Las Ramblas in the buff, as it seems too many were exercising their rights while frightening the tourists. (Mainly American tourists, I dare say!) I suppose that’s where naturism ends and exhibitionism begins, but alas, that’s a different post.
In the meantime, one’s license to make any beach a nude beach seems to be the common doctrine, especially in the more remote places found on say… the Balearic Islands. We were staying on the southern corner of Mallorca near the town of Campos at the exquisite Skinny Dippers Naturist Retreat, (That blog post is coming soon!) where we had the expertise of our lovely host Grant, who knew all the best spots to bathe naked in the shimmering turquoise waters of Mallorca. Our enthusiasm for the world famous Es Trenc beach was a bit more fervent than that of our host, though he was kind enough to guide us to the best parking lot that would provide the easiest access to where we’d be likely to find other naturists.
An early arrival at the parking lot was well worth the effort; (early, meaning before 10:00 am) then a fifteen-minute trek past all the beach bars with locals and tourists packed in on top of each other. But then, near the old bunkers left over from WWII, the naked people began to appear. With shallow waters that allow one to wade 100 meters into the sea, it truly is a remarkable place, and there were plenty of constituents in the naturist cohort, and as many again who were happy to go topless. We were there with another couple from the naturist retreat, and indeed, nobody seemed to notice that some people had swimsuits and other did not. So much so, one couldn’t help but wonder “WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE WRAPPING YOURSELVES IN POLY-PETROLEUM-NYLON WHEN WHAT YOU’RE WEARING IS, IN SO MANY WAYS, MORE REVEALING THAN WHAT I’M NOT WEARING?” But most importantly, Es Trenc is a place where naturists and textiles can easily co-exist – and, in fact, do so every day!
But the real find was the seaside path to the south and west of Es Trenc. Once again, at the advice of our host, we left the car near the lighthouse at Cap de Ses Salines, walked 50 meters out toward the sea, doffed our clothes and headed north. We made this walk twice along the seaside – once in the morning, then a few days later at sunset – each time finding a few other walkers along the way. The first beach we came to was broad and sandy, with a shallow shelf and more turquoise water; the second consisting of a rocky shore around a stunning bay where boats like to drop anchor and while away the day. Few of the people we encountered along the way were naked, but again, nobody seemed to care. According to our friend Grant, tourism is the heartbeat of the Balearic Islands, known for a laid back attitude to begin with. If the tourists are happy getting naked, and that means they’ll stay longer and do more for the local economy, bring on the naked people!
Though we were on Mallorca for about nine days, we found the “pool gravity” at Skinny Dippers Retreat to be incredibly dissuasive from getting our naked asses out of the resort and off to the seaside. And it occurs to me that we have only scratched the surface as to where one might commune with the Vitamin D gods on this beautiful little island. So to that end, we have already booked our return visit for next summer at which point, I’m hopeful additional “research” will lead to the discovery of a few new places to bask in the sun.
We are fortunate people! We discovered naturism at a young age, and now we are empty-nesters with enough discretionary income to explore the planet in the best possible way – naked.
In 2013, we were lucky enough to live in Europe for a year and took advantage of that to make a three-month journey across Europe with the intention of visiting as many naked places as we could manage. You can read a little about that here, but we’re at it again. I have business in France this summer, so I’ll need to wear clothes for a few weeks, but for the rest of the summer, we’re going to do all we can to live in the now and the naked. Our itinerary…
Therme Erding is always our preferred first port of call when traveling to Europe. It’s a short drive from the Munich airport, and by the time you’ve soaked, sweated, and slumbered in their comfy lounges, the jet-lag thing seems like a non-issue. We’ll stop here twice on this trip – on our way into Europe, and again on our way out. I’ve referred to Therme Erding several times in my blog over the years, in several different contexts. Not a naturist place by definition, but if you want to spend the day with a bunch of naked people, well, I guess it is.
Beach at Ile du Levant
We have visited Ile du Levant at least a half-dozen times now and stayed at several hotels on the island. By now, there’s no question – our lodging of choice is Heliotel near the plaza at the top of the hill. It takes at least a couple visits to the Golden Island to figure out what that’s all about, and in fact, having done some reading on the topic, the “about it all” has changed quite a lot over the decades. But today, it is mostly a tranquil little island virtually unnoticed by the rest of the world. Perfunctory rules tell you where you can and cannot be naked, but nobody seems to pay them much mind – in either direction. Naked and clothed people just going about their business in anticipation of another stunning sunset on the Cote d’Azur. This year, we’ll be there for a long weekend with novice naturist friends. Talk about throwing them in the deep end…
Shopping nude, because you can!
Then I have to work for a few weeks before we make our way to Barcelona to catch the ferry to Mallorca. While we regard the place with a sense of circumspect, we will stay overnight at Hotel Eve in the renowned (infamous?) Cap d’Agde. I think this will be our third visit to this theme park of human deviant behavior (harsh… I know… but really, humans walking humans in studded collars? C’mon!) since we have a day to kill en route, and indeed, there is something alluring about having the freedom to go banking or grocery shopping in the nude. Our last experience (maybe ten years ago) at Hotel Eve was very pleasant. A quiet oasis in a metropolis of bizarre.
We are counting the days until our arrival at Skinny Dippers resort on Mallorca. Neither cheap, nor easy to book – we reserved last summer – this appears to be one of the premier naturist boutique hotels in the world. Pictures could very well be deceiving, but I doubt it. And apparently, Mallorca boasts some stunning naturist beaches as well. We are prepared to reveal our findings related to all things Naked Mallorca. Stay tuned.
Mallorca naturist retreat
From Mallorca, we take a ferry to Sardinia (just a stopover) to Corsica. Again, this will be our third or fourth visit to Corsica, but our first visit to naturist resort Bagherra located on the East coast of Corsica, about 2 hours south of Bastia. Our previous stays were at Riva Bella, and another complex called Piana Verde which is no longer naturist. And we’ve made day visits to U-Furu (Lovely!) and La Chiappa, each of which are charming in their own right. But it seems Bagherra has the best accommodations on offer at this point, so we’ll give it a try. One thing for sure – they have a good webmaster.
Corsica
With the desire of finding blindingly sunny days, we chose to end our sojourn in Greece, but as it turns out, getting from Corsica to Greece on a car ferry takes some doing – in this case, making our way across the rather naturist-unfriendly country of Italy to the Adriatic Sea. There are a few naturist places to be found, but the one not far from the port in Tuscany called Locanda di Terramare; a smallish inn that appears to blend simple Tuscan elegance with the freedom to be nude. Just two nights there, but it looks like a great stopover.
Given its perfect climate, there are amazingly few sanctioned naked places in Greece, though the one that has emerged as our personal favorite is Vritomartis on the southern coast of Crete. This will be our third visit to this stunning resort perched on the cliffs over the deep blue sea. A fabulous bonus is that they organize amazing day trips including naturist boat excursions and even a naturist trek through a remote gorge. This year, we hope to take the day trip to Gavdos – the most southerly point in Europe – a small island that has long been a safe haven for hippie types and other naked folk.
As we head back north, we plan to spend a few days at the Fig Leaf Villas back on the mainland west of Athens. This will be our final stop on our naturist explorations of summer 2016, positioning us for a boat trip back up to Venice which will position us for our return to Munich and a few more hours at… you guessed it – Therme Erding.
Nude hiking on Crete
In short, we have invested a lot of time and effort in seeking out the best naked places in the world. An endeavor not only intended to serve our own naturist desires, but to help people find places they would otherwise miss. Naturism is a niche market at best. If a few thoughtful blog posts can help keep these stunning places thriving, then it’s worth all the effort. Hard work, but somebody’s gotta do it.
Vritomartis
On the beach at Cap d’Agde
It’s easy to reminisce about the good ol’ days, when local nudist clubs were thriving in America, when naturist ethical mores were higher, and people were just more laid back about the naked people on the beach. You know, back before the internet.
As a 50-something male, I have pined over the fact that I was born a bit too late to enjoy the “golden days of naturism.” We like to believe that things were better before people became so uptight and paranoid with a desire to legislate every possibly questionable behavior out of existence. While there’s some truth in that, (another rant for another day) I would have to say that things are getting significantly better for naked people. More complicated, perhaps, but better.
From Ile du Levant, c. 1961
My inspiration for making such a bold statement is largely a reaction to having read Stephen L. Harp’s recent book, Au Naturel: Naturism, Nudism, and Tourism in Twentieth-Century France. I fear he won’t get much press outside of academic circles, as even the Kindle edition is really expensive. But given the fact that I’ve spent so much energy over the years touting the naturist glories of France, I thought this would be well worth the investment. And it was.
Harp spends a lot of time setting up the story as he traces the roots of naturism back to early twentieth-century Germany and France. In short, it was a radical movement, embraced by only a few, and held in contempt by most. The early leaders worked tirelessly to convince the government (and the masses) that, along with a diet that restricts meat, alcohol, tobacco, and anything else that tastes good, that direct exposure to the sun will be make you healthy.
A vintage postcard from Cap d’Agde
There were various coalitions in those early naturist movements, including a few pioneers in the US, but it’s worth noting that much of what they were fighting for back then would be considered more conservative than the average swimwear you see on just about any beach today. (Especially European beaches – home of the Speedo!) The requirement of le minimum was typical, meaning that while breasts and chests might be exposed, genitalia still needed to be concealed. Of course, there were those who would push the boundaries for full nudity, but they were the daring ones. It would be the early 1960s before people really started getting naked on French beaches. That’s scarcely fifty years ago.
The early days on Ile du Levant
What changed the narrow minds of the masses? Two things; tourism and sex!
My followers know that we’re very keen on Ile du Levant, as we try to make even a brief visit during our annual naturist pilgrimage to France. And I have carefully avoided mentioning that we have twice visited the famous naked city, Cap d’Agde, as the reputation among naturists in the know is dicey at best. “Oh, you’re those kind of naked people!?!”
No. Actually, we’re not. But interestingly enough, when I tell somebody from the US that we enjoy naturist vacations in France, if they know anything about the topic at all, their first question is, “Oh, do you go to that big naked city on the Mediterranean? What’s the name?” And if they’re really in the know, “Aren’t there swingers there?”
What I found most informative about Harp’s history of French naturism was that there has been a consistent pattern over the past hundred years when it comes to humans getting naked. In very general terms, it goes something like this:
The “AH HA” moment for me was not that naturism caught on in Europe simply because Europeans are more open minded and free-spirited, but in nearly every case, the right to get naked followed some initiative of commercial development. “Turn these marsh wetlands into a place to get naked, and people will come by the thousands!” Simple supply and demand.
A sea of nakedness at Cap d’Agde
And sure enough, we are seeing similar trends today, even in the US, with offerings like the The Big Nude Boat and some of the Florida resorts that have simply abandoned the guise of what so many of us hold dear as holistic naturism to cater to those with more hedonistic tendencies. The assumption is that if we let people believe that sex might be related to nudity, that the public at large will completely flip out. But if this article in the Huffington Post (What Really Goes On Inside Nudist Resorts) isn’t enough evidence, the only people who are not connecting those dots – at least in the US of A, are the naked people. By and large, the average guy on the street has already made up his mind.
Am I condoning places that advertise themselves as naturist/nudist destinations only as a guise for the crazy sex dens everyone is leering and jeering about? ABSOLUTELY NOT! Am I shunning my commitment to holistic, non-sexual naturism as a truly meaningful way to enjoy life? Again, I say no. But as a fellow blogger put it so succinctly, (Sex and the Conservative Nudist) we are doing a disservice to our own credibility if we refuse to view nude recreation through the eyes of the public at large.
Naked (concrete) luxury at Cap d’Agde
And to be sure, the Millennials and their younger cousins are growing up in a different world than the pioneers of naturism, with different ideals about sex, nudity, religion, marriage; all salted with a sense of paranoia instilled by a generation of helicopter parents. But amidst it all, I’m sitting naked on the porch of a Hawaiian yurt bantering about nudity. While some of the old nudist camps have quietly disappeared, there is a greater variety of opportunity for people to get naked than ever before… all over the world. And on the day of this writing, people are taking to the streets with the #freethenipple campaign – a war that’s already been won in New York City. That’s a long country mile from requiring le minimum on a beach in the South of France just a few decades ago.
Maybe the Millennials will help us all sort out some of the sexual hang-ups of the past. My guess is that, as in the past, supply and demand will even things out. As long as there are people who embrace holistic nudity, – whatever that means – there will be places to do that. As long as there are people who want to push that boundary, there will be a market for that as well.
How is that different than anything else that’s trending in the world right now?
A POST SCRIPT to my readers in France: Harp goes on to talk about CHM Montilivet and the other resorts on the Aquitaine as well as those in Provence and in the Ardèche, noting that these places have largely held true to the early naturist core values, while at the same time, benefiting from the local government’s desire to increase tourism. As long time patrons at La Jenny, we are most grateful for that. No such phenomenon has yet to occur in the US.
Photos for this post were found on the internet. If I used your photo without permission, let me know and I’ll change it out.
So we’ve been in Europe for about five weeks now. Four weeks in France, and now, several days in Greece.
Headed for the port on Ile du Levant
Much of the time in France this summer was work related, though we were able to steal away for a couple nights on the magical Ile du Levant, and carved out a week at our “go to” place, La Jenny, before jetting off to the dependably blue skies and turquoise seas of Greece. We like getting naked in Greece, and in Croatia, and if the conditions are right, in the Caribbean and Germany as well. But at the end of the day, France gets the prize.
If we’re going strictly from a meteorological point of view, even the best parts of France can be tricky. Get a cold front on the Atlantic coast, or a severe dose of the Mistral blowing up from the Mediterranean, and your week or two of sun-worshiping can become a soggy or sand-blasted mess! The Adriatic and Aegean Seas are much more predictable in the Vitamin D consumption department.
But here’s some interesting data…
Near the vineyard at Club Origan
When I make a new blog post that I think might be of interest to a certain demographic or group, I tend to post a link on a relevant message board, such as clothesfree.com or the British Naturist Corner. Despite my limited abilities of being conversant in French, I have particularly enjoyed being part of the VivreNu community – the comprehensive resource for naturism in France. After a year’s absence, (as I’ve not done much naturist blogging over the past 11 months) I posted a link to a recent blog post on VivreNu. Within one or two hours, “referred click-throughs” from VivreNu had nearly outnumbered that from any other country, including that of the good old (but decidedly prudish) US of A.
In other words, the naturist community in France is alive and thriving. I’m not really a facts and figures guy, but from an anecdotal point of view, I would say that the French people have fewer hang-ups about casual encounters with naked people, while French families seem to be the most likely (along with the Germans and the Dutch) to go on a family “nakation.” It was this very phenomenon that drew us into French naturism in the first place, and if the VivreNu data is of any consequence, it seems that France continues to grab the brass ring when it comes to going on holiday with nothin’ but the radio on!
Truthfully, I’m not fond of gross generalizations. And there are a lot of great places to get naked in Europe, and I predict that there will be more and more opportunities for no-tan-line vacations in Asia and South America in the coming years, but for now –
On the beach near La Jenny
All hail to nakedness in France, and those who celebrate the right to bare all amidst vineyards, sunflowers, and historic chateau. France will always be the place where naturism genuinely made sense to me – in a way that I had dreamt it should be – and for that, I am forever grateful to the people who are able to say “a breast is a breast, a penis is a penis, and it appears everyone sports a remarkably similar pair of buttocks!”
Viva la France.
La Jenny plage
Today was a good day.
I spent most of it sitting naked by the pool at a quaint little naturist resort on Rhodes (Greece), which allowed the luxury of a day of dozing and pleasure reading. And indeed, it was a pleasure to read Mark Haskell Smith’s Naked at Lunch: A Reluctant Nudist’s Adventures in the Clothing-Optional World. i’ll get around to posting a full blown book review in the coming days as I think this is a must-read for anyone interested in nudity; pro, con, or indifferent.
An afternoon dip in Montenegro
As I reached the end of the book, one of those silly internet quiz games came to mind, like this one, where you try to guess whether you’re looking at a picture of an ass or an elbow. While I don’t have statistical evidence of this, it seems that most people pretty-much fail these tests outright. When put to the task, most are unable to distinguish one from the other. In other words, all our family photos of arms in flexion should have been confiscated by the WalMart photo guy as pornographic – just a simple crop and Photoshop away from the photo line-up of inter-generational asses!
Forest walk in the South of France
What’s most brilliant about Smith’s book is his assertion that being offended lies mainly in the eyes – or more accurately, the acculturation – of the beholder, well illustrated by the fact that in many parts of the world, the exposure of a woman’s elbow would be considered way more heinous than a guy like me dropping his clothes and walking naked through Barcelona. (Which up to a couple years ago, used to be legal, by the way.) After chatting up all the leaders of various naturist movements at play in the last fifty years, he concludes that the crazy ones are not the naked ones, but the people who can’t handle looking at them – or even simply knowing about them.
In any case, here’s where I think Smith delivers his knock-out punch
“Society needs to come to terms with the fact that some of us like pleasurable pursuits. A person shouldn’t feel guilt or shame for being naked any more than someone should feel guilt or shame for enjoying a ripe peach. So what if people want to go skinny-dipping at the beach? If it really bothers you, maybe you need to take a long look at yourself and figure out why it bothers you. Just because you’re offended doesn’t give you the right to keep someone from enjoying their own body and the environment. Two things we all share. Two things that are free of charge.”
I don’t want to throw out a spoiler, but this is coming from a guy who didn’t consider himself a nudist before writing the book, and admittedly, doesn’t consider himself a nudist after writing the book, despite the fact that he must have spent the better part of a year hanging out naked (sorry for the pun) while researching why people get naked, and investigating the psychological mêlée surrounding people who love getting naked, as well as the people who freak out when they hear there is nakedness occurring on the beach down the road.
“Point de vue” in the South of France
Funny thing is, I have vivid memories from my adolescence when a local swimming hole became so controversial that it made the headlines of the local newspaper for weeks on end. (I was a paperboy, so I was tracking it closely.) It seems the problem was two fold; the first being that people were getting naked and jumping off the bridge into the river, but secondly, this became such a popular pastime for so many that parking and facilities became a real issue. People were blocking the driveways of the local residents, and lacking a better option, peeing on their trees. But by the time it hit the newspapers, crowd management wasn’t the offense – public nudity was the culprit, which led to strict legislation that would make any incident that involved nakedness a serious offense with “one-strike – you’re out” kinds of penalties. My father, who I always thought to be quite open-minded, applauded the authorities for shutting down the hippies at the river. “Why would anybody in their right mind want to be swimming naked anyway?” It was probably the first time I realized that I was a naturist at heart, as I tried to figure out if I could ride my bicycle to this place. It never happened. The whole thing was shut down before I could save enough money to buy myself a map.
A couple photos in this post are from a little villa we rented on a mountain overlooking the stunning Bay of Kotor in Montenegro a few years ago. We had a private veranda with a small pool, where we could watch the cruise ships creep in and out of the harbor. The neighboring villas on each side were closed up for the season, so while we weren’t sure whether we should be naked at the pool, we thought it was worth the risk, especially given the fact that people seem more tolerant about nudity on the Adriatic than almost anyplace in the world. On at least two or three occasions, a lovely Serbian woman from three doors down would magically appear on our veranda, either to look after the villa for the owners, or to deliver freshly picked grapes and figs, or a homemade pastry fresh out of the oven. And there we were, unable to conjure up a single word in her language, unsure of how Serbians felt about nakedness, only to respond with a smile – which was reciprocated each and every time. We were naked. She was kind. Nobody got hurt.
Morning stroll on Ile du Levant
Isn’t that the way it should be? I’m not crazy about tattoos and have chosen not to get one, but I have little concern for those who enjoy them. I do have issues with people who fly the Confederate flag, despite the numerous explanations I have heard as to how that doesn’t imply what it seems to me it would imply. In short, I find that offensive, just as I find some of the political propaganda signs that appear in my neighbors’ yards to be offensive. But that is my choice to be offended – in this case, quite likely the desired effect of the offender! (I could launch into an entirely new tangent about the right to be offended in the land of the free, but I think you get my drift.)
Covering one’s ass is now a requirement on Orient Beach
But when I walk naked on the beach, i have no desire to offend anyone. In fact, I go out of my way to avoid offending people as best I can. But as many have noted, someone taking offense could lead to any number of untoward consequences, from compromising one’s career to being labelled as a sex offender. Unlike today, that would not be a good day.
All that ruckus… when you have to take a double take at the photographic evidence to determine whether you’re offended by my elbow, or my ass.
Really?
