A dozen or so kilometres on from Vejer de la Frontera, CONIL is an increasingly popular resort. Outside July and August, though, it's still a good place to relax, and in mid-season the only real drawback is trying to find a room. Conil town, once a poor fishing village, now seems entirely modern as you look back from the beach, though when you're actually in the streets you find many older buildings too. The majority of the tourists are Spanish (with a lesser number of Germans), so there's an enjoyable atmosphere, and if you are here in mid-season, a very lively nightlife.

 

The beach , Conil's raison d'être , is a wide bay of brilliant yellow stretching for miles to either side of town and lapped by an amazingly, not to say disarmingly, gentle Atlantic - you have to walk halfway to Panama before it reaches waist height. The area immediately in front of town is the family beach; up to the northwest you can walk to some more sheltered coves, while across the river to the southeast is a topless and nudist area. Walking along the coast in this direction the beach is virtually unbroken until it reaches the cape, the familiar-sounding Cabo de Trafalgar , off which Lord Nelson achieved victory and met his death on October 21, 1805. If the winds are blowing, this is one of the most sheltered beaches in the area. It can be reached by road, save for the last 400 metres across the sands to the rock.