The most rewarding way to experience Doñana is on an official guided 4x4 tour into the protected core. These depart from El Acebuche visitor centre, near Matalascañas, and from Sanlúcar de Barrameda to the south. The tour takes you deep into the marismas, through pine and cork oak scrubland, and out onto the Atlantic dunes — terrain you simply cannot reach on foot. Guides are knowledgeable and patient, and the unhurried pace means real wildlife encounters rather than a checklist exercise. Book in advance, particularly in spring.
Birdwatching does not require a tour. The viewing hides at La Rocina, just outside El Rocío, overlook a freshwater marsh where you can watch purple gallinules picking through reed beds, herons standing motionless in the shallows, and kingfishers flashing across the water. The El Acebuche lagoon is watched over by hides that fill up fast at dawn. Bring your own binoculars — the park does not rent them — and come early.
The Palacio de Acebrón is a handsome mid-century hunting lodge set among cork oaks near the Rocina stream. It now houses a free ethnographic museum about life in and around Doñana — cattle drovers, resin tappers, charcoal burners — and a short circular trail runs through the riparian forest beside the Charco del Acebrón pond. It makes a calm counterpoint to the wildlife intensity of the marismas. On the park's northern edge, the pilgrimage town of El Rocío is worth at least an afternoon: sandy, horse-patrolled streets, the Hermitage of the Virgen del Rocío, and bar terraces looking out over the lagoon where flamingoes often wade in plain sight.