BQ Andalucía Beach Hotel

Of the five hotels in Torre del Mar this is the one on the front line: four stars on the Poniente promenade, with a pool and a door that opens onto the sand. It also carries more reviews than any other hotel here, over sixteen hundred, which tells you how many people pass through it in a season.

If your holiday is the beach and nothing else, I would book this one and stop reading. You are on the sea front, the water is a hundred steps away, and the promenade with the espeto grills runs in both directions from the door.

What I would weigh up before booking

Front line means noise in August. The promenade is alive until well past midnight in high season, and that is the town working as it should rather than a fault of the hotel. Ask for a room away from the promenade side if you sleep lightly, and take the sea view if you do not. Parking is the other thing: the free bays behind the seafront fill before noon, so if you arrive by car check what the hotel offers before you turn up in the second week of August.