According to Executive Digest, there is a varied choice of beaches available in Portugal (even if this weekend's weather is not inviting...), and there is one in particular that stretches for 45 kilometers, which makes it not only the largest in the country but also the largest in Europe and third worldwide.

Between the Atlantic Ocean and the Alentejo plain, from the tip of the Tróia Peninsula to Melides beach, the coast of the municipality of Grândola appears as the largest stretch of beach in the country and the third in the world, according to the publication 'Portugal de North to South'.

This continuous patch of sand is the largest stretch of beach sand in Europe, which over time was divided by beaches from Tróia to Sines: beaches of Melides, Comporta, Aberta Nova, Carvalhal, Pego, Atlântica, Bico das Lulas, Tróia -Galé and Tróia-Mar.

The coastal landscape is characterised by a low coastline of extensive sandy beaches, sometimes made up of the reddish sediments of recent sandy cliffs. The beaches, with golden sand and a Blue Flag, make these places a privileged destination.

This stretch of beach is surrounded by natural paradises that stand out for their biodiversity, fauna, and flora, such as the Serra da Arrábida Natural Park, the Tróia Peninsula Dunes Botanical Reserve, and the Sado River Estuary.

The Arrábida Natural Park has around 17 thousand hectares, divided into marine and terrestrial areas, and is based on a small limestone massif that falls into the sea in large cliffs. Its current morphology results from violent phenomena linked to tectonics and erosion.

For the ICNF, the diversity of marine habitats present in the Arrábida Sea makes it a hotspot of diversity, an exceptional place from the point of view of biodiversity indices on a European scale with more than 1,400 registered species.

The plant richness is also one of the park's greatest attractions, where rare examples of Mediterranean maquis can be found in Portugal, and its preservation was one of the reasons that led to Arrábida being considered a truly international scientific relic.
The Sado Estuary Natural Reserve presents several forms of contact between land and water, making the transition between the last relief in Extremadura, the Arrábida mountain range, and the Alentejo plains.

It includes a section of the river, salt marshes, beautiful beaches, and coastal dunes, as well as cork oak forests, pine forests, and agricultural areas. In the Troia Dunes Botanical Reserve, a natural dune ecosystem, endemic species of a priority nature occur.

Here lives the only resident population of dolphins (bottlenose dolphins, the symbol of the reserve) which, in Portugal, use an estuary as a feeding and breeding area.

The estuarine area is like a natural “nursery” for mollusks and numerous fish, with 100 species of great biological and commercial interest having already been identified, with emphasis on the famous Portuguese oyster. This estuary is also one of the 3 main Portuguese wetlands with importance for water birds, mainly as a nesting site.