‘Everything carries a hint of myth and magic’: six great island escapes in Europe

From the Med to the Atlantic and the North Sea, our writers choose great offshore idylls offering peace and perfect beaches

Gaze west from one of the crows-nest hilltops on Monteagudo (“Sharp Mount”) island, and you can just about imagine the rooftops of Atlantis beneath the Atlantic swell. One of the three islands that comprise the Islas Cíes archipelago, about nine miles off the Galician coast, it is where Captain Nemo, hero of Jules Verne’s 1871 novel Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, salvaged the treasure that funded his adventures.