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Playa de la Cachucha, Puerto Real: Cadiz and Costa de la Luz beach guide
An uninspiring little beach without much to recommend it
The Cachucha beach in Puerto Real is a very small beach located in the Bahía de Cadiz, Spain. The town of Puerto Real doesn’t have a lot to offer visitors and the beach is no different.
It faces onto the bay of Cadiz, not the open sea, so there are not very big waves, hardly any at all, and the water does not get deep very quickly. This also means the water is slightly warmer than the open sea of the beaches in Cadiz city. However, not many people go in the water of Puerto Real’s beach because it is basically a muddy quagmire that leaves you up to your knees in black gunk.
Local people will tell you this iodine-rich mud does wonders for the skin, and decades ago there were plans to create a spa here around this natural resource. However, those plans never materialised and looking across the water to the shipbuilding yards, you have to wonder how clean the water really is, and how much of that enriching mud has oil and pitch in it.
There is one bar-restaurant next to the beach which is quite pleasant when it’s open, though it can get a bit windy if you sit outside.
Puerto Real barely has two hotels, and neither of them are close to the beach. There are plenty of apartments available for short-term holiday lets, though in honesty most of the people who rent these use Puerto Real as a slightly cheaper base from which to visit other nearby towns and beaches, such as Cadiz and Valdelagrana.
There is no lifeguard on duty on the beach and also no itinerant salespeople who walk up and down the beach all day selling cold drinks, snacks and souvenirs.
It consists of a sandy stretch of beach around 300m long. The sand is not as soft and pleasant as other beaches close by.
There is a ramp down to the beach and two wooden walkways, though these do not stretch all the way to the hard part of the sand and cannot really be called ‘disabled access’.
There are no toilets, though there are a couple of showers-cum-footwashing stations.
People often walk their dogs on the beach, but it is generally kept very clean and free of poop.
In short, there is no reason to go out of your way to visit the Playa de la Cachucha when there are so many quality beaches nearby, and if you do find yourself in Puerto Real you'll be better off going to one the nearby beaches like those in Cadiz city.
How to get to the Playa de la Cachucha
By car
There is a car park right next to the Playa de la Cachucha with some limited space for parking caravans and motorhomes. The town is located halfway between the larger towns of San Fernando and El Puerto de Santa María on the Bay of Cadiz.
By train
Puerto Real train station is on the Cádiz Cercanías train line, about halfway between Jerez de la Frontera and Cadiz city, and there are trains running at least every hour.
You can consult train times here.
By bus
The buses that connect nearby towns with the Playa de la Cachucha are the M-030, M-031 and the M-032 which run between Cadiz city and Puerto Real.
You can consult the bus timetable here.
By plane
The closest Spanish airport to Puerto Real and the Playa de la Cachucha is Jerez de la Frontera airport, which has a direct connection via Cercanías train, although there are only about four trains per day going in each direction that go all the way to the airport, which is at the end of the line.
Other tourists who choose to visit the province of Cadiz often fly to Seville airport as it is larger and has more connections, and is only about an hour away from Cadiz by train or car.
For British tourists, flying to Gibraltar airport from the UK is also a popular option when visiting Cadiz as there are lots of flight connections and it is also only about an hour away.
Image: Cádiz Turismo
