Visit Andalucia Logo
Visit Andaucia Best Travel Platform Spain
Visit Andalucia Logo
Visit Andaucia Best Travel Platform Spain

Sotogrande offers a luxury lifestyle on the Costa del Sol

Sotogrande on the Costa del Sol is a purpose built, luxury lifestyle, town. Known for its golf, sailing and upmarket restaurants

By Nick Nutter | Updated 29 Mar 2022 | Cádiz | Villages | Login to add to YOUR Favourites Favourites Icon or Read Later

This article has been visited 15,037 times Sotogrande Marina Sotogrande Marina

Sotogrande Marina

Introduction

Situated in the municipality of San Roque, Sotogrande, with its satellite villages of Pueblo Nuevo and Torreguadiaro is famous throughout the world for its luxurious lifestyle.

Sotogrande itself was the dream of an American entrepreneur, Joseph McMicking who wanted to build an idyllic environment in which to live. He visited the region in the 1960 s and saw that the coastal area between Torreguadiaro and Pueblo Nuevo de Guadiaro was perfect. It had decent communications to Málaga and Gibraltar airports, fantastic views across the Gibraltar Strait to Africa and inland to the hills and was in the beautiful setting of the Rio Guadiaro valley and its estuary.

He bought his first cortijo in 1962, Cortijo Paniagua. Paniagua is now a thriving commercial area with shops, restaurants and offices tastefully occupying the original ancient building.

Since then Sotogrande has grown to be one of the finest gated communities in the world covering over 4,000 acres. The rich, famous and the nobility own its villas and apartments, many of which overlook or, more recently, were actually built on purpose built islands in Sotogrande marina that is now considered the finest marina in the Western Mediterranean with berths for over 800 boats from just a few metres in length to super cruisers of 30 metres.

Sotogrande Marina

Sotogrande Marina Sotogrande Marina

Sotogrande Marina

The marina is the first that you encounter when you sail east of Gibraltar so is a favourite for those fitting out to sail deeper into the Med. Support services include chandlers, a fuel bunker, lifting out facilities, restaurants and bars.

Crews are never short of entertainment. Other sporting facilities include golf at any of the international courses in the area, polo, tennis and various water borne activities such as sailing, canoeing and wind surfing.

Guadiaro Estuary

Nature lovers will find the Guadiaro estuary a fascinating habitat for birds, including a number of pairs of purple gallinules that have established themselves since 2004, together with many species of raptor and wader. There are areas of wild coastal maquis deliberately protected but left open for pedestrian traffic to provide a home for the resident mammals and reptiles and native shrubs and flowers. At any time of the year a walk alongside the river or around a lagoon is a colourful and rewarding experience.

Sotogrande Beach

The River Guadiaro Estuary The River Guadiaro Estuary

The River Guadiaro Estuary

For those in need of pure relaxation, the beaches are some of the best in Andalucia.

Just a short walk from Sotogrande, via a boardwalk alongside a lagoon, is the newly promenaded Torreguadiaro. As the name suggests it is the location of one of the many torres or towers built between the 15th and 18th centuries to provide vantage points to warn the locals when marauding bands of Barbary pirates were making their way from their safe havens on the coast of Morocco. In fact Torreguadiaro has two torres, the first and newest is a rather grand affair visible from the boardwalk whilst the second, older, torre is gently crumbling at the western end of the promenade.

It has taken Torreguadiaro two thousand years to develop as far as it has today. During Roman times it was a tiny fishing settlement, famous in those days perhaps for being on one of the routes taken by the Via Augusta, a series of roads that went from Cádiz to Rome. The paved Roman road crumbled over the ages, only to be paved again in the early 20th century.

Torreguadiaro

By the time Joseph McMicking came along the N340 as it had become was a single-track tarmac road with dusty verges. The fishing village through which it passed had hardly grown, a collection of cottages housing the fishing families whose boats were drawn up in the sheltered bay at the eastern end of the village. Gradually, as Sotogrande expanded, so to did Torreguadiaro. More modern houses and apartments were built, not to everyone’s taste but with stupendous views, and the roadside properties became restaurants and bars.

The road itself was widened with a central planted reservation over a couple of years and finally finished in 2008. A large car park was built at one end of the promenade at the same time that now also serves as the location for the weekly market. There are a number of restaurants in this small village each with its own speciality, traditional Spanish, modern Italian, Indian and International and a number of bars at which you can sip coffee or something stronger whilst watching the world go by.

Sotogrande Beach Sotogrande Beach

Sotogrande Beach

Sotogrande Beach Sotogrande Beach

Sotogrande Beach


Note: This article may contain affiliate/compensated links. That means that if you book through our link, we may earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you). For full information, please see our disclaimer here.


Places near San Roque municipality

Places to go in San Roque