The Port of Santa Maria 🛄

One of the most interesting tourist resorts on the southern Costa de la Luz is The Port of Santa Maria, a town that stretches between pine forests, beaches and lagoons on the opposite side of the bay of Cadiz and which can be reached either in 20 minutes by car or by ferry.

The inhabited area is divided into two nuclei, the older one and the properly seaside one. Having reached its maximum splendor in the XNUMXth century, this seaside town has a beautiful fortress, the San Marcos Castle, built on the site of an ancient mosque of which it retains elements in the Almohad and Gothic styles, a spectacular Plaza de Toros, Plaza de las Galeras Reales with the four-mouth fountain and an important church of the fifteenth century, the Mayor Prioral, with a facade rich in Gothic elements such as spiers, flying buttresses and gargoyles. Furthermore, the historic center is full of Baroque buildings among which the Casa dei Leones is the most significant.

The interesting buildings of thereligious architecture are the Victoria Monastery, an old hospital and penitentiary center, the churches of San Francisco, the Concepción and the Mayor of Nuestra Señora de los Milagros, and the Capuchin and Espíritu Santo convents.

Famous because here Christopher Columbus met the owner and helmsman of the Santa Maria caravel, today El Puerto is a charming town in the so-called sherry triangle, which is the place where the best sherries in the world are produced, and its beaches are very crowded in summer, especially due to the presence of numerous tapas bars and bodegas for the sale of sherry.

The Port of Santa Maria offers più di 15 kilometers of beaches with fine golden sand among which we recommend those of Levante, Valdelagrana, Santa Catalina and Fuenterrabía. Here you can taste some of the best dishes of the gastronomy of the province of Cadiz and have fun in one of the many bars open until late.