A day trip to Conil de la Frontera
another lovely, pristine whitewashed town but unlike Vejer, relatively flat and boasting several lovely soft sandy beaches (including one that is sheltered from the fierce levante winds)…this the Costa de la Luz is what travel writers are calling “Cádizfornia”.
Without a car, one can reach Conil from Cádiz capital by bus in about an hour.
Conil’s population doubles in the summer but in winter remains quiet. Since this part of the Costa de la Luz has more blue flag beaches than anywhere in Andalucía, Conil is a Mecca for Spanish families during the summer vacation period.
It offers many casual bars for tapas, such as El Mirlo, Los Hermanos and La Tasca de Juan, a municipal market, a museum of tuna and a few large resort hotels on the beach (Fuerte Conil, Daia Slow Beach).
It’s one of the four almadraba blue fin tuna trapping centers of the Costa de la Luz and for a month, May through June, local restaurants participate in the “Route of the Blue Fin Tuna”, a gastronomic event, complete with a demonstration of the “ronqueo” or the filleting of an enormous blue fin tuna specimen with some 40 establishments presenting a special tuna dish.
Its vegetable gardens offer the region’s best tomatoes (the ones I so enjoyed at La Carboná in Jerez) and alcauciles, the local name for artichokes.
Conil offers several tuna-centered restaurants, such as Cooking Almadraba by Petaca Chico, the locally owned blue fin tuna company with its flagship store in town plus El Roqueo and La Fontanilla/Francisco Fontanilla, run by the Pérez brothers on very pretty Fontanilla beach, along with the seasonal beach restaurant/chiringuito, Feduchy Playa with sibling restaurant in town, popular for music and cocktails.
At Fontanilla beach in early March
We enjoyed our (very early) lunch of tomato salad (not as flavorful as La Carboná’s), tuna tartare and atún encebollado, tuna braised with onions, at Fontanillla but missed the house specialty, the urta (red banded sea bream)
