Ayamonte

The ferry leaves on the hour, every hour, from a concrete slipway that smells of diesel and salt. Fifteen minutes later you're drinking vinho verde in Portugal, watching the same river flow backwards. This is Ayamonte's daily magic trick: a town that exists in two countries at once, where Spanish fishermen wave to Portuguese wives across the Guadiana's brown water.

The River Makes the Rules

Ayamonte sits where the Guadiana surrenders to the Atlantic, 21,000 people spread across a low hill that gives views without the calf-aching climbs of proper mountain villages. The relationship with water is everything here. Morning brings fishing boats returning with prawns that will be grilled by lunchtime, their crews shouting prices across the harbour in a mix of Spanish and Portuguese that sounds like neither. The tide dictates parking: leave your hire car too close to the marina and you might return to find salt water licking the hubcaps.

The old town keeps its back to the modern beach developments, facing the river instead. Streets narrow to shoulder-width passages where laundry hangs between wrought-iron balconies, and every corner seems to end in a glimpse of water. At the top, the Iglesia del Salvador charges €2 for entry – worth it for the cool darkness after the glare, and for the view from the steps where old men sit rolling cigarettes, apparently immune to the tourist queue below.

Down in the Plaza de la Laguna, life happens at café tables scarred by decades of coffee cups. This isn't a square for sightseeing; it's where grandparents supervise grandchildren, where market gossip travels faster than WhatsApp, where British visitors learn that queueing is optional but waiting your turn is mandatory. The town hall watches over it all, an eighteenth-century building that somehow still feels temporary, as if the river might claim it back tomorrow.

Seven Kilometres of Empty Sand

Isla Canela isn't an island, but the name persists from when this was properly cut off by marshes. Now it's seven kilometres of Atlantic beach that even in August has stretches where you can walk without seeing another footprint. The sand is fine and pale, the kind that gets everywhere, and the water carries the Atlantic's chill even in July. Portuguese families arrive by ferry, carrying cool boxes and windbreaks, treating the Spanish side as their local beach – a reversal that makes locals smile.

The protected status means no high-rise hotels directly on the sand. Instead, low villas and small hotels sit behind dunes of sea grass and pine. Walk fifteen minutes from any car park and the beach empties. The west wind can be brutal – experienced visitors bring proper windbreaks, not those flimsy things sold in the supermarket – but it keeps the air clear and the sky enormous. Evening is when it becomes magical: locals arrive at six, staying until sunset at nine, the temperature perfect, the light golden on the marshes behind.

Punta del Moral, the actual island bit, has a working fishing harbour where boats unload at dawn and restaurants serve the catch by lunch. The rhythm is tidal rather than tourist: nets get mended when the boats are out, siesta happens when they're in. The chiringuitos here serve simple grilled fish – no menus in English, no need. Point at what looks good, agree to the price, wait while they cook it over charcoal. It arrives with lemon, bread, and a view of Portugal across the water.

Crossing Borders, Eating Fish

The ferry to Vila Real de Santo António costs €1.85 each way, runs until 10 pm, and represents one of Europe's easiest international trips. The Portuguese town's grid of streets, laid out after the 1755 earthquake, feels different immediately – wider, more formal, the tiles bluer, the coffee stronger. British visitors treat it as a day trip, but locals pop over for Portuguese chicken, pharmacy shopping, or just because it's Tuesday and the sun's out.

Back in Ayamonte, the food stays resolutely Atlantic. Gambas blancas from Huelva arrive alive and angry, cooked simply in olive oil and sea salt. Casa Miguel Ángel does tuna with tomato that's mild enough for cautious palates, while Chiringuito de Antonio grills sardines over proper wood charcoal, the smoke drifting across the beach. Vegetarians survive on goat-cheese salads and the coca de Ayamonte – a pastry of almonds and pumpkin jam that tastes like Christmas even in July.

The market, held Wednesdays and Saturdays in the covered hall near the river, is where Spanish housewives still shop daily. British visitors stand out immediately – we're the ones trying to buy a week's worth at once, fumbling for coins, apologising for our Spanish. The stallholders are patient, wrapping tiny portions of cheese or ham in waxed paper, explaining that yes, you can buy three prawns if that's all you need for lunch.

When the Tourists Leave

September brings the fiestas patronales, nine days when Ayamonte remembers it's a town first, resort second. Processions wind through streets barely wide enough, bands play until dawn, and the town square fills with teenagers who've known each other since primary school. British visitors are welcome but incidental – this is for the people who live here, who've been saving fireworks since Easter and whose grandparents started these traditions.

October to March strips everything back. Restaurants close Mondays, Tuesdays, sometimes for weeks. The beach becomes a place for walking dogs, for locals in coats to stare at the Atlantic and remember summer. Rain comes horizontally on the west wind, and the river swells brown with Portuguese rainfall. It's not pretty in the postcard sense, but it's honest – a working town that happens to have a beach, not the other way around.

The practical stuff matters less than the rhythm. Cards work in the supermarket but not at the fish stall. Parking near the port is free but fills early with fishing trucks. Dinner starts at 9 pm minimum – arrive at 7 and you'll eat alone, if at all. The wind-break isn't optional, the sunscreen is, and the ferry timetable changes with the seasons, written in chalk on a board that someone updates when they remember.

Ayamonte works because it refuses to choose between Spain and Portugal, between fishing town and beach resort, between tradition and tourism. It just is, has been for centuries, will be when the last ferry stops running. Come for the beach, stay for the river, leave understanding that borders are just lines in water that the tide ignores twice daily.