Bajamar Natural Pools

The Atlantic smashes into the pool walls a few strides from where you swim, and the water inside stays clear and cool. The two ocean-water pools are huge, with room for a lot of people before the place feels crowded. A breakwater shelters a calm lagoon with a small black-sand beach, and a separate children's pool gives families somewhere safe for the youngest.

The setting does as much as the water. Steep green slopes rise behind the town, and there are no big hotels on the front. The crowd is relaxed and mostly local. It makes a good swim after a walk in the hills above La Laguna, and a good place to sit out the sunset.

• Changing rooms, showers and toilets are on site, and there is a kiosk by the pools.
• There is no drinking fountain at the pools: bring water, or buy it from the kiosk and the cafés in town.
• The spaces right in front of the beach run out at busy times; the town streets and a free car park take the rest.
• The children's pool and the lagoon behind the breakwater are the calmest water for young children.
• In a heavy swell waves break over the outer walls. Look at the sea before you get in.

Most visitors drive into Bajamar and leave the car in town, either on the street or in the free car park about 150 m from the pools in a straight line, then walk down to the seafront. The spaces directly in front of the beach are the first to go.

By bus, the Bajamar and El Sol stops both sit roughly 300 m in a straight line from the pools, a walk through the town to the water. Parking for wheelchair users and a step-free entrance are provided.

Best: a calm, sunny day, staying on into the evening for the sunset over the sea.

Avoid: days of heavy swell, which reach this north coast most often in winter.

When big waves come in they break over the pool walls, while on a calm day the pools lie still and clear beside the open Atlantic.