El Guincho Beach

Soft black sand runs along the foot of the cliffs, and the big stones on it lie together in clusters, so most of the beach stays clear to sit on. The waves come in big off the open Atlantic and bring the surfers out.

The approach is part of it. Banana plantations cover the slope above the shore, and the view over the leaves to the cliffs and the sea is worth the walk on its own. Find the right path and the reward is a stretch of black sand that plenty of people drive right past.

• The beach is easy to miss: lanes through the banana plantations end at cliffs and rocks with no way down to the sand.
• Photos online tagged with the name do not all show this beach.
• Parking close to the beach is hard to find, and one of the nearby car parks is for customers only.
• The waves are big and the beach belongs to surfers on a swell day; it is no place for weak swimmers then.

The way down that works starts at the modern church above the coast: drive down that road, park, and an easy footpath leads down to the sand. Two car parks sit about 240–250 m from the beach in a straight line, one of them gravel and one for customers only, and spaces near the shore are hard to find.

By bus, the El Patio stop is about 520–560 m away in a straight line.

Do not set off through the banana plantations hoping to stumble on the beach. The lanes wind between the plants and several of them end at the top of the rocks with nowhere else to go; people have spent two hours in there without finding the sand.

Best: a summer day when the Atlantic swell is down, from late morning, when the sun stands high over the cliffs and the whole beach is in light.

Avoid: days of heavy swell, which on this north-facing coast come mostly in winter, unless you are there to surf or to watch the surfers.

The beach faces the open ocean, so the state of the sea decides the visit.