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We’re sure you’re envious of the summer (or the calm sea during the winter months), but we can’t wait to share with you these lesser-known Spanish coastal towns you should visit this year – here’s our list of private tours to take!
Some people look out to sea like Dalí; a white sheet hanging from the balcony announces to the sailors that a new resident has been born, or a full moon that seems to draw a golden path to the horizon.
The relationship between people and the sea always whispers a hundred stories to be discovered in the narrow streets where the great blue emerges from every corner. Costume postcards to enjoy with all five senses in these little-known Spanish coastal towns that you can discover this year (and which are best explored in months other than July or August).
LA ALGAMECA CHICA (CARTAGENA, MURCIA)
It may not be a village, but La Algameca Chica is much more than that: a community, an alternative oasis or a place many of us would like to retreat to in a blue and white striped hammock.
This century-old shantytown for former miners and tourists, located on the Benipila estuary near the Murcian city of Cartagena, survives between the past and modernity – or, rather, between illegality and freedom – thanks to a few neighbours who live among the colourful shacks, without electricity or plumbing, but with a much greater reward: a frozen photograph of the old Levante years, which here are more eternal.
MUNDAKA (BILBAO, EUSKADI)
Among the rocks on the beach, a father and son try to catch a crab with a bucket and spade. A little further on, tourists sip a txacolí under a giant tree in the bar of the El Puerto hotel, while the first surfers head for the bay of Biscaya, where the sea, the land and the river Oka have strangely become an estuary.
Mundaka is considered the mecca of one of the biggest waves in Spain – the record height is 4 metres – and is a small paradise on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, a must-see if you have finished visiting the emblematic island of San Juan de Gaztelugatxe. If surfing is not your thing, no problem: you can always lose yourself in the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve, which surrounds this blue, pink and green town.
EL ROMPIDO (HU RIVER)
Between the Atlantic Ocean and the river Piedras lies El Rompido, a small village of whitewashed houses and boats stuck in the mud that point to one of the great icons of the area: the Flecha de El Rompido, still fondly disputed by the neighbours of Lepe and Cartaya.
Up to 12 km long, this sandy area can be reached by paddleboard without missing the view of the paradisiacal beach of Nueva Umbría or the picturesque Real de la Almadraba de Nueva Umbría, a complex that has housed the workers and top representatives of the tuna industry.
SABINOSA (EL HIERRO, CANARY ISLANDS)
Leafy roofs over stone buildings, agaves that seem to be from another planet and the sound of the sea in the distance. El Hierro, one of the most unexplored islands in the Canaries, is a hotbed of endemic species that includes villages like Sabinosa, the most remote on the island, located on a volcanic hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.
The gaveteros – the name by which the inhabitants of the village are known – have always been shepherds thanks to the nearby village of La Dehesa, which makes Sabinosa a place steeped in folklore, white lime and the certainty of being a place lost in time and space.
BANYALBUFAR (MALLORCA)
There are places whose names already reveal their privileged status, and Banyalbufar is one of them. This small village, nestled among the terraces of the Serra de Tramuntana mountain range, translates from Arabic as ‘building by the sea’ and invites you to discover one of the most privileged corners of Mallorca.
A walk among the buildings of Banyalbufar, in the purest island style, is not possible without climbing Es Penyal, whose upper part is hidden among the vegetation and offers a perfect view of the dreamlike Mediterranean Sea, from the Sa Canaleta wash houses, built at the end of the 19th century, to the houses with green windows.
LAS HORTICHUELAS (CAPE STREET)
Although equally attractive, villages such as Las Negras, San José or Isleta del Moro are already part of the collective imagination when we think of the charm of the Cabo de Gata Natural Park. But here’s a secret: if you take the road from Níjar to Las Negras, just after crossing Fernán Pérez, you will find a village with several streets covered in fig trees, just two kilometres from the coast.
The charm of Las Hortichuelas lies in its extreme simplicity, guarded by pitiful gates through which the locals breathe fresh air, or even in an emblematic place, El Cortijo Subacuático, which is an exceptional offer for diving enthusiasts.
