Activities in Almunecar

Scuba Diving

Many of these coves are a favoured haunt of scuba divers who find a wealth of marine life in the crystal clear waters. The diving school in La Herradura (10mins’ drive around the coast from Almunecar) organises trips to local dive sites which include the waters off Cantarrijan beach where there’s a maze of caverns to explore.

If you dare, you can enter the Conger Cavern (so-called because the entrance to the cave system is guarded by a large conger eel!) and explore the wrecks of two sunken fishing boats.

The Atlantic Stream brings lots of plankton and other micro life forms to these waters, making this area abundant in a wide variety of sea creatures – there are conger and moray eels, swordfish, dolphin, octopus, sailfish and lobster.

Water Park ‘Aqua Tropic’

One of the most popular attractions in Almunecar is the Aqua Tropic water park at Playa Velilla where you can enjoy everything from ‘kamikaze’ rides to gentler water slides, a wave pool and a hot tub. There is a large paddling area for toddlers and younger children, and plenty of sunloungers. The park is open from June to September and has various tapas bars, restaurants and a disco.

Skiing

The ski resort of Pradollano in the Sierra Nevada mountains is 1hr’s drive from Almunecar. It’s the most southerly ski resort in Europe and is the warmest, with the most hours of sunshine. Pradollano hosted the 1996 World Ski Championships. There’s an excellent British-run ski school with British instructors, and a kids club for children who are too young for ski lessons. The resort has a good variety of runs to satisfy those of all levels. Natural snow is supplemented by snow cannons on some runs. The skiing season is usually late November – early March. During the ski season, you can ski in the morning and relax on the beach in the afternoon!

Las Alpujarras

A short drive inland from Almunecar will take you to the Alpujarras – a chain of ancient villages nestling in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. These traditional whitewashed villages have the distinctive Berber architecture of flat, clay-roofs. Well worth a visit, the most striking of these villages include Bubion, Yegen, Capileira, Lanjaron, Orgiva and Valor. Also Trevelez, which is the highest village in Spain.