Barbate is a town of some 20.000 people on the Costa de la Luz, 40km north of Tarifa. This modern town, (often called Barbate de Franco because the ex-dictator spent many summers here), has grown up around a fishing industry which goes back to Roman times when the fish-salting industry was at its peak.
Like so many towns in Andalucía the approach to El Puerto de Santa María along the main road is lined with garages, industrial plants and run down buildings. Keep going and cross the River Guadalete on the NIV (if coming from south) and turn into Calle Ribiera de los Mariscos and park in one of the car parks signposted.
The inland pueblos blancos (white towns) are well known for their unique beauty and spectacular settings - invariably hilltop locations, with the whitewashed houses huddled around a ruined castle.
This white village is famous for its orange groves and its emblematic half-moon-shaped, steel truss-girder bridge which spans the river Guadario as it flows down to the Mediterranean. San Martín del Tesorillo is 22km south-east of Jimena de la Frontera, in the Campo de Gibraltar, right on the border between Cadiz and Malaga provinces. It became a 'entidad local' (sub-district) of Jimena in 1999.
Caños de Meca is a small, unspoiled community on the windswept but stunning Costa de la Luz. Deep in the Parque Natural del Acantilado, Caños de Meca has beautiful beaches, backed by cliffs and pine trees. Perched on the cliff-tops straddling the coast road, this little village is fast waking up to a reputation as a trendy place for beatnik travellers and wave-jumpers to spend the summer.
The white village of Zahara de la Sierra has one of the most stunning settings in the province of Cadiz.
Located in a high valley over 800m in the Sierra del Endrinal and dominated by the magnificent rocky outcrop known as Peñon Grande, the pretty mountain village of Grazalema is most popular base for visitors to the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park. The park is a vast protected area of rugged limestone mountains, which are famous for being the rainiest place in Spain.
Rota, an ancient town, stands at the extreme north of the Bay of Cádiz in a privileged position. The town opens out to the Atlantic and behind are two national parks, the Natural Park of the Bay of Cádiz and the Doñana. It is also a town of two extreme contrasts.
Campo de Gibraltar is the name given to the area in the south east of Cadiz province that straddles the transition of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean sea. It is also the inland and mainly rural area that surrounds the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar.
Baelo Claudia, near Tarifa, is one of Andalucia´s most significant and well-preserved Roman archeological sites. The extensive ruins are situated on the Costa de la Luz, some 15km north of Tarifa, by the small town of Bolonia and its beautiful beach. The site´s important history rests on the former city having been a strategic point for trade routes between Europe and North Africa.
This pretty white town in the Sierra de Cadiz dates from Muslim times; it closely resembles Berber towns in the hills of north Africa. Torre Alhamique's name comes from the Arabic Al Hakin family, meaning "the wise" or "the learned". This family owned the tower-fortress, located 4km from Olvera, which became the basis for the town.
Zahara de los Atunes is one of the most charming, and fashionable, towns on the Cadiz Costa de la Luz. With a stunning beach, boasting crystal-clear waters and golden sand, Zahara's main advantage over some other beach resorts in the area, which consist largely of hotels (albeit low-rise) and restaurants lining a beachfront road, is its villagey feel.
Bolonia is a small isolated ex fishing and farming village on the Atlantic Costa de la Luz 20km north from the surfer paradise of Tarifa and 20km south of Zahara de los Atunes. It is also the site of one of the three most important Roman archaeological excavations in Andalucía, along with Italica outside Sevilla and Acinipo outside Ronda.
Algeciras is primarily and unashamedly a port and industrial centre, sprawling round the bay to Gibraltar. When Franco closed the border with "the Rock" at the nearby La Linea, it was Algeciras that he decided to develop to absorb the Spanish workers who used to be employed in the British naval dockyards and in order to break the area's dependence on Gibraltar.
The original Sancti Petri was a small tuna-fishing village located on a spit of land on the Atlantic coast near San Fernando, where the Cadiz peninsula meets the mainland. On the southern side, it is surrounded by marshes and sand bars, and beyond those, the town of Chiclana de la Frontera.
Apart from its protected nature reserves, Cadiz has a vast inland area in the east of the province that is made up of the Sierra de Grazalema Natural Park and the Alcornocales Natural Park. A Unesco biosphere reserve, the dramatically rugged limestone massif of the Sierra de Grazalema is one of Andalucia´s most visited natural parks and popular with those interested in hiking, mountaineering, potholing and rock climbing.
Ubrique is a picturesque pueblo blanco (white town) in the Serrania de Ronda Mountains of Cadiz province. Spectacularly situated in front of the crag of the Cruz de Tajo, the town follows the valley of the Rio Ubrique. This beautiful and tranquil town has a long, interesting history which stretches back over many epochs and empires.
Just inland from the coast Chiclana sits on a small hill overlooking the marismas (salt marshes). The town dates from 1303, when King Fernando IV of Castille gave the land to Guzman El Bueno, the defender of Tarifa, who was succeeded by the Duques de Medina Sidonia.
Sitting on the coast in the far west of the province of Cádiz, the pretty town of Chipiona lies at the mouth of the Guadalquivir river, only 52km from the city of Cádiz itself, Chipiona dates back to Roman times and currently has around 17,000 inhabitants.
Appropriately christened the Costa de la Luz (Coast of the Light), the Atlantic shoreline of Cadiz province have many wild and windswept beaches, with its strong winds making Tarifa the foremost windsurf and kitesurfing site in Europe.
