VISITING

Located deep in the Tarragona countryside and built on the ruins of an abandoned village, El Fonoll is the only naturist village in Spain. But, unlike more commercial naturist camp-sites and resorts on the coast, what’s on offer is far more than sunning and socialising in the sun. Former Barcelona businessman Emili Vives, and those who helped him build the village, are naturistas in the true Spanish and Catalan sense of the word. So while they enjoy being outdoors naked as much as possible, they also eat a mostly vegetarian diet, use natural medicine and treatments, and generally live a healthy life in nature. Vives calls El Fonoll, “A way of life and a life project.”

Regular guests, like Ricardo and Maria from Barcelona, seek peace and tranquility. “We come here,” said Ricardo, “to enjoy naturismo puro, to be in contact with nature.” They find what they’re looking for. Masses of it. In the quiet of the grey-stone buildings; along the leafy paths that wind around the village; by the poppy fields and in the copses; down by the natural swimming pool and lawns; in the vegetable gardens and orchards; on the farm, among the donkeys and horses and goats and ducks and peacocks; and in the stillness of the early morning, broken only by the sound of braying and quacking and cock-a-doodle-doo-ing.

Not quite a village, yet far more than a resort, on the main drag there is a shop selling organic produce (don’t panic, they do sell wine and beer), a library, a meeting room, gym, massage room and a refectory. There’s also a dance hall, an archery range, tennis courts, meditation huts, and a huge barbecue area, as well as mud baths, where visitors can wallow around in their own troughs like small hippopotamuses until they are slathered from top to toe in grey, sloppy goo. Afterwards, the clay is left to bake hard on the skin in the sun, for some extreme exfoliating. After any remaining gunk is showered off, the skin is left with a smooth silky glow. Forget spa-pampered (and pricey) luxury. This is the real thing.