Beaches and Coves Beaches
Platja de Sant Salvador
Sant Salvador is another of El Vendrell’s and the Costa Daurada’s iconic beaches, although for different reasons. For the town, because it is home to the Museum and Auditorium dedicated to Pau Casals, the universal Catalan musician of international prestige who was originally from El Vendrell. During July and August it hosts the Pau Casals International Music Festival. The beach is also exceptional for its size. It offers approximately three kilometres of fine white sand with warm calm crystal-clear bathing waters and a wide variety of services and facilities for visitors.
The second reason is that Sant Salvador, in addition Paul Casal's former summer residence, also has the oldest building in the municipality, the Ermita (Chapel) that dates back almost a thousand years. And there is a third reason: at the end of the beach is the Les Madrigueres protected nature reserve with its natural sand dunes and a diversity of habitats, including lagoons with reeds, Mediterranean woodland, and maquis with holm oaks. Just off the coast in the sea there is very extensive posidonia (sea grass) meadow, which is why the water has a high iodine content and is very transparent.
Sant Salvador Beach, the longest in the municipality, has a promenade that accompanies it along the coastline, but which is interrupted by the Les Madrigueres nature reserve. The beach used to host the Maritime Sanatorium of Sant Joan de Déu, now converted into a five-star hotel.
The calm, shallow waters of Sant Salvador Beach are ideal for children. The beach also offers a wide variety of sports and water sports facilities. Services include car parking, beach bars, bars and restaurants along the promenade, and on the beach itself, showers, toilets, sun lounger and parasol hire, walkways for people with reduced mobility, assisted bathing with amphibious wheelchairs, accessible toilets and showers, and reserved parking for the disabled. The excellent quality of the sand, bathing waters and services is certified by the ISO 14001 and ISO 9001 standards.
El Vendrell is categorised by the Catalan Tourism Agency as a Family Tourism destination, a designation that distinguishes holiday resorts with a certified range of accommodation, restaurants and leisure establishments designed specifically with children in mind.
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