Inland beaches: rivers, pools, reservoirs and other bathing spots that almost never appear in guides

I live in Madrid, far from any coast. Like so many inland residents, I grew up knowing that the sea was a destination, something that required planning and kilometers. But the desire for water doesn't understand distances and in the summer that desire is resolved in another way: in rivers, pools, reservoirs and lakes, those bathing spots that almost never appear in guides.

I started out thinking it was a phenomenon of remote towns, condemned by geography to invent their own sea. I was wrong. Many times the beach isn't so far away and yet people prefer to stay. They choose their usual pool, the bend in the river where their parents used to bathe, the shore of the reservoir where the neighbors meet.

They're closer places, but not in the geographical sense: emotionally closer, more intimate. Bathing there is a way of being at home.