So, for those of you who are up to speed with my slightly sporadic Naked Madrid musings (here’s looking at you Mum and Dad), you may have noticed that my insta handle is @littlemissmadrid, so I’m asking you to forgive me in advance for this post; I’m going somewhat off piste.

Having recently celebrated living in this ferociously fun and frenetic city for a decade, I do consider myself to be an adopted Madrileña. But even us city folk need to escape the bright lights from time to time, and as summer sadly begins to draws to a close (I am not a jeans and jumper gal), I headed south to seek out the dregs of summer and to have some fun in the sun.

With my AVE ticket purchased to Malaga (seriously, Spain’s high-speed train is undoubtedly one of the greatest inventions known to man, up there with Netflix and hair serum I reckon), the train takes a paltry 2 hours 20 and you’re down on the coast before you can say sundowner. However, Málaga was merely where I alighted before heading to the hidden gem that is Los Caños de Meca for the weekend.

Now having been living on Spanish soil for a while, I’ve started to twig that all the best places are reached by car. In spite of this, it’s in all motorists’ interests that I remain firmly off the road, so with a willing (and driving) partner in crime, we set off towards Los Caños armed with swimwear and SPF. The beach itself is a beauty – turquoise tides and golden sand prevail.

As we’ve just edged into September, it had also lost the patchwork quilt effect that comes with swarms of tourists, and it now had an all together more sedate vibe which I was all in for; less tourists equals less time spent queuing at the bar for those all-important beach beers.

Before having road tripped to Los Caños, Tarifa well and truly had my heart in the seaside stakes – but now it’s getting too close to call. Having travelled to the Caribbean coast of Columbia back in July, Los Caños de Meca has more than a touch of the quirky cool that can be found there. There’s a stretch of bougainvillea lined road called Avenida Trafalgar that hosts a number of surf shack-type bars – where folks spill out onto the street as easily as the drinks flow.

My hands-down favourite beach bar is cocooned in the Mercado de Artesania and called La Perlita. It’s hard to describe just how picture perfect it is – but I’ll give it a go. Imagine your ideal back garden, by the sea and the dreamiest piña colada/carrot cake combo and yeah, you’re about halfway there.

Now I love a food truck as much as the fellow millennial, but this one can’t be beat. The cocktails are fantastic, the food fresh (we had falafel, prawn dumplings, veggie noodles and a veggie burger – yes, I’m aware that gluttony is one of the seven sins) but with prices that definitely don’t match Madrid, it was nigh on impossible not to over order. The menu is what I’d call healthy hipster and the nice touch is that’s everything’s recyclable. As we all try to slide into sustainable socialising, La Perlita is ahead of the curve, with their food being served in paper bags and the gently lulling reggae tunes that swayed in the background added to my food coma.

No trip to Los Caños is complete without a trip to the infamous beachside mecca, La Jaima. Birthplace (I imagine) to thousands of insta stories, it’s so idyllic even the most hardwired stresshead would struggle not to be lulled into a zen-like state here – the views can’t be done justice on an iPhone (and god knows, I tried) but as the golden hour kicked in and the café del mar type tunes ramped up, I was positively horizontal on my beanbag and felt about a million miles away from the chaos and crowds of a city. The bar boasts live music and quite possibly the friendliest staff I’ve ever met – although who wouldn’t be beaming from ear to ear if you got to call the beach your ‘office’.

Feeling satiated having spent the day bar hopping and getting bronzed, we decided that we should try to find a place stay. Word of warning: it’s not easy. Los Caños is clearly not one for mass tourism, as we painfully discovered.

Spontaneity doesn’t always pay off so what I will say is book ahead. Clearly we weren’t the only ones hoping to sizzle our way into September so, sadly, there was no room, quite literally at the Inn(s) for this Mary and Joesph, but I did spot Hotel Guadalupe, a gorgeous looking boutique hotel on the aforementioned Avenida Trafalgar. Seriously, I can sniff out a decent-looking hotel like a bloodhound. Sadly, I just don’t seem to have the foresight to book them.

So whilst I didn’t get get to stumble back to a beachfront abode, I did get to enjoy a pretty perfect day that filled my cup right up and should keep me feeling warm and fuzzy into autumn (or maybe that was just my slightly sunburnt nose). Either way, cities are great and all, but sometimes your bod just craves some Vitamin Sea and ultimately the heart wants what the heart wants. In this case it was a delicious dose of daiquiris and downtime.