El Palo

What makes it special

Painted eyes on the prow mark out the jábegas, the long wooden rowing boats pulled up on the sand, and each one steers with a single oar. The painted eyes go back to Phoenician ships. Today the boats are raced rather than fished from.

Low fishermen's cottages, the casas mata, line the promenade, with beach restaurants between them. The beach is soft, fine sand, and the water is calm.

In front of the restaurants, look for the barca: an old wooden boat filled with sand, with a wood fire burning in it in plain view. The espetero tends it, judging the fire and the timing by eye.

The neighbourhood itself is working and unpolished. Laundry hangs from the balconies, old men play dominoes at plastic tables, and anglers fish from the beach.

Visiting

There is no menu at El Tintero, the beach restaurant at the east end just before the small El Candado marina, and lunch there is the reason to come.

Waiters walk out with plates fresh from the kitchen and call out what they carry: sardines, anchovies, red mullet, squid. Raise a hand to claim a plate before another table does. When you are ready to leave, the waiter counts your empty plates to make up the bill.

After lunch, walk on east past the marina to the Peñón del Cuervo, a large rock standing in the sea.

Tips

Come for a festival if your dates allow. On Saint John's Eve, 23 June, bonfires burn rag figures on the beach and the neighbourhood swims at midnight.

During the week of 16 July the Virgen del Carmen, patron saint of fishermen, is carried through the streets and down to the sea. The jábega regatta is rowed in July too, with El Palo's crew racing other Málaga neighbourhoods.