Most visitors to Doñana come for the birds and the marshes, and overlook the fact that the park also protects one of Europe's longest uninterrupted stretches of Atlantic coastline. For around 30 kilometers, from the edge of Matalascañas southward to the Guadalquivir mouth, the beach inside the park has no road access and no development. The dunes behind it reach impressive heights — some over 30 meters — and are in constant slow migration inland, burying and re-exposing pine trees as they move.
This beach is accessible on the guided 4x4 tours, which drive directly along the shoreline. Outside the tours, the edge of the beach at Matalascañas gives a flavour of what lies beyond, but you cannot simply walk into the protected zone. The intertidal zone holds shore birds year-round: sanderlings, dunlin, grey plovers and knot in winter; kentish plovers, whimbrel and turnstone in migration; nesting little terns in summer. Even at the accessible edge, standing with the resort town behind you and nothing but empty coastline ahead is a reminder of how much has been saved here.