10 Best Swim Spots From ‘Cold Water’
Don’t let the name throw you off - there’s something for warm water lovers in my new book ‘Cold Water’ as well. Outnumbered by chillier spots, I’ve added a few places in here that will satisfy sun loungers and cosy paddlers, like the beach at Isola Bella (featured in Season Two of White Lotus). Then, of course, you’ll find plenty of sub-10C delights and a combination of both hot and cold at one spot blessed by geothermal riches: Nauthólsvík Beach.
So, pull down your goggles and roll your shoulders, here are the 10 Best Swim Spots From ‘Cold Water’ (accompanied by excerpts from the book):
Loch Broom, Scotland
‘In Gaelic, Loch Broom is called ‘Lochbraon’ – or, the ‘loch of rain showers’. The Highlands are known for hosting long stints of gusty rainfall, which drenches the peaty soil around the lochside, spilling into the water to darken their depths. In places, the murk thickens to such an extent that you lose the tips of your fingers in the swing of each stroke. Divers usually need torches at depths of just ten metres.’
‘After a few strokes, I was drawn deep into the darker shades of this greenish Scottish soup. My hands reached over tangled plains of kelp and seaweed and whipped holes in the gloom. Suddenly my shoulder jolted as I stumbled into an approaching figure. It was one animal we hadn’t discussed in our build-up to the swim. The tentacle snaked into my enlarged line of sight. I immediately kicked back and leapt upright. It was a splayed red jellyfish – a warbling wad of stingers that seemed to pulsate menacingly in front of me. It looked like the lion’s mane stingers we’d met on our swims together in Norway…’
“In Gaelic, Loch Broom is called ‘Lochbraon’ – or, the ‘loch of rain showers’.”
Isola Bella, Sicily
‘Sipping water, we headed back up cobbled sideways and walked through the piazza along the main street. There was a priest in this colourful convertible we saw each morning. He stopped at the chapel. At which point tourists always flocked to admire the religious mural painted on his car. Aside from this small bustle it was still quiet and too early for the boutique stampede. We took our time as we found the footpath down to Isola Bella beach. I couldn’t believe we were about to start our day in the Ionian Sea. We both talked excitedly as the pebble bay crept into view. It was set at the foot of Taormina where an islet crept out into deep water, topped with lush plant life. A narrow strip of beach connected it to the shore. At high tide that causeway closed and the islet was adrift in the moonlit sea. They called it the: ‘Pearl of the Ionian Sea’. The Region of Sicily bought it in 1990 and kept it as a nature reserve, with sea grottos and crops of submerged boulders on all flanks. A small sea-facing house had been built there by an English gardener and wildlife conservationist, called Florence Trevelyan. Imported flora was planted nearby and it grew large as it absorbed the Mediterranean heat. There were species of birds and lizards that thrived there as well…’
Parliament Hill Lido, England
‘Aside from the popular Highgate Ponds, Parliament Hill Lido is one of North London’s best-loved cold water spots. The lido opened in 1938 and sits below the green slopes of Parliament Hill. It looks similar in design to Brockwell Lido and also the forgotten Victoria Park Lido, which replaced the bathing lakes, in 1936. These places emerged as part of a Labour plan to boost the health and morale of London residents. Victoria Park Lido spanned over 60 metres across – another city beach for the landlocked bathers of East London. They pumped water in from a filtration plant, built a wading pool and even erected terraces for spectators to look out from. Like much of the city, the lido was damaged in World War II and limped back to life in 1952. Before it suffered storm damage and finally snuffed it and was replaced by a car park, in 1990 – another concrete-filled loss to the community.’
“Parliament Hill Lido survived. It remains the most expensive of all those 13 lidos, built by the London County Council, between 1920-39...”
‘However, Parliament Hill Lido survived. It remains the most expensive of all those 13 lidos, built by the London County Council, between 1920-39. Every unheated patch of rectangular water has its own survival story. There are always swimmers and devoted groups who campaign and protest on their behalf. The fact Parliament Hill Lido still stands gives testimony to how valued it is. Owned by the Corporation of London, this letterbox of blue seems to glow in a maze of parkland and terraced buildings…’
Lake Bohinj, Slovenia
‘That evening, we followed a buoyed line used by the rowers (World Rowing Championships are hosted in the lake each year) and took a straight line for roughly 2,200 metres in the green murk, from one end of the lake to the other. No sighting was needed. Our eyes were downturned into the murk for most of the swim. We even saw a dogfish or two as they passed beneath us, as well as other larger fish and shapes that scattered a few metres down. Most of the water in Bled is glacial, or churned up from tectonic activity. The water is closely circled by mountains and forests – trees teeter right up over the shoreline. While the northern shore acts as a natural plinth for Medieval Bled Castle, propped on an outcrop against the blue skies.’
‘Another day, we drove over the border into Italy and down the steep Predil Pass. We took a road that span us onto vertigo-inducing bends. Before we parked up in one of the high valleys and walked out from the treeline to be greeted by glacial waters of Lago del Predil. We were up at about 960 metres, still in the Julian Alps, with the bare slopes of the Kanin massif on all sides. On the way home, we took the tour vans onto a beat-up car train. We had enough time to stock up on cheap beer as the van rolled off the platform, up a ramp and onto the flat bed of our rusted rail car. Then we hurtled off into a 3000-metre tunnel directly through the base of the mountains. Valley rivers, chalky ridges and forests whipped by, until we finally reached a station not far from Lake Bohinj...’
Agios Pavlos, Greece
‘At all times, you felt close to the sea in Lindos. Nostrils twitched with the smell of Aegean salt. Waves were often audible, lapping in the bays that shoulder the Acropolis headland. There were barely any tourists at the coastal bars and cafés either. In the day, we’d find staff milling about, listening to music and nursing cigarettes. They set down small plates and lit coffee to ward off the wasps.’
‘One afternoon, I took a group of us out to swim beyond a long rock wall. This wall sheltered the smaller Agios Pavlos beach, where the shore was strewn with chalky boulders and a sun-baked chapel poked up into the warm sky. All paths snaked down to the cove of turquoise water, with a few small boats, circled by fine sand and sun beds. Local kids climbed the rocks and launched into dives and flips and a few styled-out bombs. We swam over a bubbling pod of scuba divers as we rounded the headland. Then we found a shaded cave and trod water over submerged archways, rocked by little waves. At intervals, we peered down and saw larger fish in dark crevices, as well as pale jellyfish and shoals of silversides (they might’ve been anchovy)…’
“At all times, you felt close to the sea in Lindos. Nostrils twitched with the smell of Aegean salt. Waves were often audible, lapping in the bays that shoulder the Acropolis headland...”
La Valette Bathing Pools, Guernsey
‘Before long, the swimmers disbanded and went off to various offices, school runs or breakfast cafés. We stuck to the south side of Havelet Bay and walked with our guides to the Octopus restaurant. It was a popular post-swim stop off, serving steamy seafood stews and full English breakfasts. Inside, the place was stuffed with aged maritime décor and tributes to the writer Victor Hugo (Les Misérables). Victor Hugo was one of many extraordinary figures, who’d swum at the La Valette Bathing Pools, along with painters Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Oscar-Claude Monet. In fact, Hugo had spent some 15 years on Guernsey at Hauteville House, living in exile from 1851, following the coup of Napoleon III. It was during this time that he wrote ‘The Toilers of the Sea’ and haunted entire pages with descriptions of a pulpy, shapeless nightmare – the pieuvre:’
‘This is the monster which mariners call the poulp,’ he wrote, ‘Which science calls the cephalopod, and which legend calls the kraken. English sailors call it the ‘devil-fish’. They also call it the ‘blood-sucker’. In the Channel Islands, it is called the ‘pieuvre’… It is very rare in Guernsey, very small in Jersey, very large and quite frequent in Sark.’
The Hellespont, Turkey
‘Two days later, Calum and I stood staring at that broad expanse. A crowd had gathered on the European beach at Eceabat. Ahead of us, the Hellespont flowed under a dome of sunlight. The water looked warm and rolled slowly with flashes of sun glitter. Both of us were quiet as we eyed the 5-kilometre crossing back to Çanakkale. In that moment, it was impossible not to feel the history that swelled from this strait. The shoreline was strewn with dusty Ottoman castles. Not far from where we stood, you’d find the battlegrounds of ancient Troy, on the western entrance to the Dardanelles. It was there the Asiatic shore had been a staging ground for the Trojan War – Achilles himself might’ve fought there in heel-revealing sandals. Persian armies also marched the coast under Xerxes I of Persia and Alexander’s Macedonian army crossed the strait in 334 BCE. More recently, in 1915, an allied invasion force of British, French, India, Australian, New Zealand and Newfoundland troops entered these waters as part of the Gallipoli Campaign. Their intent was to pry the straits open and relinquish the control of Turkish troops, who repelled the Royal Navy. During that conflict, the Turks had filled the strait with mines – only two submarines (one British and the other Australian) were able to penetrate this minefield throughout the campaign...’
Silfra Fissure, Iceland
‘Earlier, I wrote about the Mid-Atlantic Ridge – how it divides the North America and Eurasian Plates. I described how Iceland formed as lava was hardened by the cold ocean. Then it was forced upwards by an upwelling of magma from below. Well, Silfra Fissure is a scar that marks this rift. A tectonic boundary line where the North American and Eurasian plates have split apart to form this rift valley, above sea level. The fissure is a deep channel filled by glacial water, where these two divergent tectonic plates parted – a process that began about 150 million years ago.’
“The fissure is a deep channel filled by glacial water, where these two divergent tectonic plates parted – a process that began about 150 million years ago...”
‘The fissure lies level with the rim of Þingvallavatn Lake, tucked into the valley, within a National Park of the same name. The name, ‘Silfra’, translates roughly to ‘silvery’ and the water drawn into the crack has a magical quality that befits this name. It is cold meltwater, which flowed from the receding Langjökull glacier (Iceland's second largest) - about fifty kilometres north of the lake itself. Long ago, this meltwater would've ridden a river to the lake. Yet this river was blocked several thousand years ago. Lava flows ran from the Skjaldbreiður volcano and the meltwater began to pool and seep into the lava rock. The groundwater then percolated for almost a hundred years, chilled at 2-3C, before it spilled out again, highly filtered and instantly drinkable.’
Fritton Lake, England
‘Just over a month later, on July 2nd, we had another close-up swim with British wildlife. Calum and I were invited to swim the two-mile Fritton Lake – a freshwater centrepiece for Wild East’s rewilding project on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. London was less restricted at the time. Everyone was still masked on the trains, but the shackles of Covid were loosened slightly. We left the city and wound over the tufted waterways of the Norfolk Broads. Sleepy lowland expanses swept by the windows. Smaller boats and yachts plied navigable rivers, among peaty banks and fields of livestock. Our eyes flitted over English villages and waterside pubs and drainage windmills. Before we finally pulled into our station and stepped out and whipped our masks to suck in gulps of country air, with familiar traces of farm manure.’
Nauthólsvík Beach, Iceland
‘Even in November, that spear-shaped bay was shaded by dim, wintry light. Anna and I walked across the lawn to a lookout, above the lagoon. The sun hung low on the horizon and burned between rooftops, framing the skyline. Nauthólsvík Geothermal Beach stretched out below us. The water was flat and waves were barely noticeable as they nudged the shore. In the late 1990s, all that fine-grained sand had been poured out along the bay. They shaped that whole side of the inlet to their liking. They even built huge rock walls and partially closed off the cove to deflect the brunt of the Atlantic chop. Then they fitted their new bathing centre with showers, steam baths and a long hot tub, shaped like a trough – the water simmered at around 38.5C.’
“Locals soaked and lined the trough and chatted in the steam. There were a few familiar tow floats strewn at the edges. One swimmer was still out in the lagoon, moseying back and forth...”
‘Locals soaked and lined the trough and chatted in the steam. There were a few familiar tow floats strewn at the edges. One swimmer was still out in the lagoon, moseying back and forth, between the rock shields, with her head up. She wore a woollen hat and looked comfortable, like she’d been in for a few minutes. Another swimmer walked back across the sand, trailing steam from his mottled skin, wearing gloves and boots.’
There you have it! 10 of many incredible spots encountered across the past 4-5 years of swimming that went into ‘Cold Water’ - currently funding on the award-winning Unbound platform. Hope you enjoyed the write-up and happy swimming if you happen to seek out a few of these for yourselves!
