Cabo de Trafalgar lighthouse

Cabo de Trafalgar is a low sandy tombolo running out from the shore at Los Caños de Meca, with a white lighthouse on the rock at the end of it and the battle of 1805 fought somewhere out in the water beyond. You walk out along a boardwalk and sand, five minutes from the car.

The geography does the work. Because the spit is narrow, you can put the sea on both sides of a couple, and because it points west the sun sets straight down the axis of the walk — the reason photographers on this coast keep coming back to it.

At low tide the wet sand on the north side turns into a mirror and doubles the lighthouse; at high tide the same stretch is a narrow strip of foam. Check the tide table, because it changes the shot completely.

The dune and juniper behind the spit are protected, so stay on the boardwalks. There is no shelter of any kind out there — on a levante day the sand moves at ankle height and a long dress becomes a sail. Sunset is busy in August with people coming for the same view; go a weekday, or an hour earlier.