I think it goes without saying that I love the playa. And I love the month of August - in Spain it's the height of summer, when many people are enjoying weeks of vacation time, and El Puerto de Santa María is bustling. It's great to see the city full of people going out, enjoying themselves, and (most importantly for local businesses) spending money. But to be honest, I'm not the biggest fan of the beach in August.
When the temperatures are reaching into the 100s (or 40s) inland, it seems like every Sevillano heads south to El Puerto and straight to the beaches. Maybe it's my Americana need for personal space, but I just can't handle the masses of people, packed umbrella-to-umbrella. If it's high tide on a weekend in August, buena suerte finding a piece of beach to call your own. The only way to get some sand to yourself is to show up early (10 o'clock might as well be the break of dawn for vacationing españoles), claim as much playa as possible, and leave before you end up sharing a towel with your new beach neighbors, sometime early in the afternoon.
I prefer when the playa looks like this:
The August crowds, not to mention the lack of parking in the surrounding neighborhoods, have me longing for September, when the beaches will be relatively peaceful again. But there is one thing about the summer season that I will miss - the chiringuitos.
