San Juan beach in Alicante
But it is not strange that they have their fans. The beach must be the only place where there is that almost mystical state in which the waves can be heard above the Sunday roar and where a square meter of sand automatically becomes a private Eden. It's magic: you put your feet in the water, then a little in the sand, you cover yourself with the help of the cream and you're hardly there anymore; the sun, the waves, the contact with nature become the only thing that exists. It is a matter of letting yourself be rocked. That which, This article is nothing more than a personal selection of the Spanish urban beaches that the best lullabies have sung to me.
**LA CALETA (CADIZ) **
My favorite beach in the universe is a rather wide strip in front of the most popular neighborhood in Cádiz, La Viña. Flanked by two fortresses, crossed by a refreshingly white and art deco old spa and sheltered by dozens of fishermen's boats that look like props. As can be assumed, all this fortunate landscape meeting gives rise to some sunsets to herd . Contrary to what happens with any cultural manifestation, the best thing about La Caleta is its fans: the ladies playing a game of eternal bingo , the lovers who are not yet old enough or have a car to go to the beaches of Cortadura, those who take a siesta under the umbrella, those who are in a hustle and bustle with Tupperware, the canis and those with the little flamenquito… They make me want to kiss them one by one . And, above all, to become hot at first. The mackerel burial party is held here at the end of August. And Die Another Day was also filmed here, where James Bond did not die that day, but he confused Cádiz with Havana, as in couplets.
La Caleta beach: a lucky landscape meeting
**THE SHELL (SAN SEBASTIAN) **
My most vivid memory of La Concha beach, that of the aristocracy, which is a little more than a religion for the people of San Sebastian, is that of a man from Pamplona with all the trappings of San Fermín sitting in front of the sea at dawn. It could be a more or less normal picture, the typical thing that every good man has done at the end of a complicated night that he does not want to end: "why not go to the beach now?", but it is that this boy was alone. Since then I can't help but think of La Concha as a refuge for fugitives. Of course it has all that daytime social fruit salad from urban beaches , but, even so, the Cantabrian elegance of the rocky masses that enclose it (it is a bay, not just a beach) facilitates escape and a greater illusion of privacy than in any other city beach. You feel vaguely lucky to be there every time. Then at night, streetlights illuminate it in Parisian elegance. , like a Seine come to more and the Bataplán nightclub allows you to fight the inescapable collection of donostiarras disco gourds counting waves from the dance floor. And, of course, another thing that this beach has is the surroundings, that is, Donosti. But that, I'm not even going to try, it's better to read Gontzal Largo.
Shell Beach
**RIAZOR (A CORUÑA) **
600 meters of rather familiar beach in which the protagonist is a promenade with a balustrade where you can lean out and look. Sometimes what you see are surfers, sometimes concerts and, on clear days, the Tower of Hercules. It is the same as Orzán, its twin beach, separated only by a breakwater at high tide. It is one of those beaches that you look at from the front, which continuously participates in the life of the city. For example in San Juan, when 100,000 people from Coruña consume hundreds of fires and thousands of sardines in one night . As an extra, it has a tram and the Playa Club, a disco joint with concerts where you can end the night dancing to shake off the sand.
**BEACH OF SAN LORENZO (GIJÓN)**
A surprise beach where the tides decide how many of us are going to fit each time and whether or not we can play football freestyle beach You can see Cimadevilla, the fishing district where some of the most insanely welcoming bars in Spain are located. That's good, for the views, but bad because you're clouded by the temptations to pick up the towel right away. Above is the Paseo del Muro de San Lorenzo which, without wind, is the place to meet all of Gijón and see it from a flattering perspective.
Gijón: here the waves decide
**SARDINER (SANTANDER)**
It is the place to savor history and feel what royalty did when they dipped their pinreles in the same place as you, but in the 19th century. If you fix your eyes on the Palacio de la Magdalena for a long time, you can travel back in time. If you stare at the Palacio de Deportes for a long time, you are transported to a future where a UFO has landed. It is a very Santanderian beach, that is, full of people from Bilbao. And so familiar and calm that it is homey . It preserves machine gun nests from the Civil War, because in Santander they are not to throw anything.
**BARCELONETA (BARCELONA) **
La Barceloneta is the ultimate beach, a universe on its own. The largest and busiest in Barcelona, which is saying a lot, it is filled with moderns, families, rumberos, paellas, skaters, conflicting music fights … It comes from being the beach of a fishermen's neighborhood designed in the 18th century and it shows in its genes. In what is young and new despite its 200 years and how much popular and seafaring it has left. From its Torre de San Sebastián you can take the cable car to the Mirador viewpoint in Montjuic and see the entire city, all in one day.
La Barceloneta: popular and seafaring tradition
**LEVANTE BEACH IN BENIDORM (ALICANTE) **
One only has to look out over this beach from the coast to find what is extraterrestrial about that Hong Kong skyline erected on the ghost of what was once a small fishing village. Benidorm is much more than it seems, crazy nights, yes, but also a motley humanity that most likely finds whatever it is looking for, because the town of skyscrapers has it all. There are two beaches, Levante and Poniente. Since you are going to Benidorm, your thing is to bet on the least calm, Levante, with its lot of genetically reveler . benidorm it is excess for excess and that spirit is concentrated here, among more than 5,000 hammocks in which it rests a clientele that oscillates between the hangover, the rice and if we start with the drinks.
Benidorm, the Hong Kong of Levante
**MULBERRY BEACH (VALLADOLID) **
Yes, it is a river beach. The charm here is that it is a brief reserve of Valladolid's bravery where there are those who sunbathe, those who go topless and even those who bathe in the dubious waters of the Pisuerga . It is as artificial as an urban beach can be, in which the rarest thing is that it exists. You can rent canoes here or watch the canoeists go by. At your back you have some leafy and well-kept parks, such as La Rosaleda, which was where a city that was not very supportive of its river used to end up until the creation of this heroic beach.
The loneliness of the bather in the background