It's our favorite beach in Manilva at the moment.

Tourist site like www.turismomanilva.com tell us that this sandy beach (fine dark sand) is 1600 m long and 30 m wide (on average) and that the waves are moderate. I hardly can agree on the sand: to my mind, it's rather coarse sand with fine pebble, partially with some artificial additions of fine sand.

The main way to this beach is the Puerto de la Duquesa exist form А-7 highway. If you're going from Gibraltar side, there's a little exit to the castle before the port exit. There are several free parkings around the port and the castle as well as one paid underground parking in the port. It's not immediately that you can find a place to park your car in late June or July, but parking is generally not a problem. Puerto de la Duquesa itself is a sports port with lots of yachts surrounded by small cafes and restaurants for any taste. In summer, there is also some water staff for rent, but we haven't checked it so far. There's also a tourist market in the evenings.

To the left of the port (if you look into the sea), there is a beach bar (chiringuito) and then a small river. We were not very fond of this part of the beach, so we've been there only once. To the right of the port, closer to the castle, the beach is definitely more interesting: there are two tongues of rocks going to the sea and a lot of creatures in the rocks. The children are always there with buckets trying to grab small crabs.

Besides that, we've also noticed actinias, some fish like gobies and sea urchins... And it's pretty safe if you look where you step in the rocks: I've never heard someone stepped onto a sea urchin - they're clearly visible under the water.

There are two chiringuitos at this side of the beach: one is next to the port, another one is beside the castle. If you pass the castle getting further from the port, there are several nice-looking restaurants. However, we were not visiting restaurants this time because of "the andalucian job".

Apparently you can rent sunbeds from any chiringuito. However, most people come here with their own sunbeds and chairs, sunshades and cool boxes full of beer.

We've never seen any big waves at this beach. The part between the two rock tongues is especially calm and the water isn't clear there. This is not garbage, just some foam, but I didn't like it, and the water didn't get clearer, no matter how far to the sea I got (not very far indeed). The water is much better by the rock sides.