Torreguadiaro is a small coastal village in the municipality of San Roque, sitting immediately east of Sotogrande along a single main street that runs parallel to the sea. Around 1,170 people live there, which makes it possible to walk the whole village end to end in about fifteen minutes. It grew from a handful of houses built near the old watchtowers around 1900, and the construction of the A-7 bypass took the through traffic away from the main street, which allowed a genuine village feel to develop.
A village beside the marina
Torreguadiaro and Puerto Sotogrande sit within sight of each other but are separated by the long sweep of Playa de Torreguadiaro and the lagoon behind it. The beach that carries the name runs from the car park by the old watchtower down to the Sotogrande marina breakwater, so it is not in fact the stretch of sand directly in front of the village itself. The practical effect is that the two places feel entirely different despite being a few minutes apart. The marina is polished and organised around its berths and waterside restaurants. Torreguadiaro is one road, a row of terraces and a beach, and it stays that way through the season.
The village is popular with Sotogrande residents and with people from the surrounding housing developments, which is what keeps its restaurants busy well outside the summer months.
The beach and the lagoon
Playa de Torreguadiaro is regularly awarded a Blue Flag and has a lifeguard tower and first aid posts, with a substantial car park behind it that fills quickly in summer. Behind the sand lies the Laguna de Torreguadiaro, a small nature reserve with boardwalks and birdwatching hides. The lagoon covers around two hectares and has information boards and hides for birdwatchers, which matters more than the size suggests given that the Strait of Gibraltar is one of the most important bird migration routes in western Europe and North Africa.
The wooden boardwalks also make the walk from Sotogrande into the village straightforward on foot.
The two towers that give the village its name are medieval watchtowers to the west of the present village, not the pair of 23 storey apartment blocks from the 1970s that have become a landmark for sailors. The original, Torre Quebrada de Guadiaro, stands beside the car park on the Sotogrande side. It was built in the fifteenth century and served as a shelter for shepherds as well as a lookout against Barbary raids, and it was struck by lightning in the early sixteenth century and split in two. Restoration work was only carried out in 2015, using a deliberately modern white concrete support so that old and new remain clearly distinguishable. A second, larger tower of shaped stone blocks stands about 200 metres to the east on slightly higher ground.
Eating and drinking
Restaurants are the reason most visitors come. Three tapas bars sit next to one another on the main street, each with its own specialities, and Puro Tapas is the one most often singled out. Along Avenida Mar del Sur there are also long-standing fish and seafood restaurants with glassed-in terraces facing the water, one of which dates back to the 1970s, plus a gastrobar, a small sushi place and a beach bar at the hotel on the western side of the village. On the sand itself there is a summer-only chiringuito serving grilled fish and sushi, which is the first thing you reach walking in from Sotogrande. There is also an Irish sports bar and a couple of casual kebab and burger places, so the range is wider than the size of the village would suggest.
Prices across the board sit noticeably below those in Puerto Sotogrande.
Shops and services
Torreguadiaro is not a place to do a large shop. There is a convenience supermarket for everyday groceries, along with a pharmacy, a few small independent shops and several bars serving coffee from early. Anything more substantial means driving the few minutes to Pueblo Nuevo de Guadiaro, which has the supermarkets, banks and services that the coastal villages rely on.
Who it suits
Torreguadiaro suits anyone who wants to eat well by the sea without the formality of the marina. It works particularly well as an evening out for visitors staying in Sotogrande, and as a base for a few days if the appeal is walking to dinner rather than driving to it. It is small, it is straightforward, and the fact that it has not been redeveloped in step with everything around it is precisely the point.