Things To Do in Costa Blanca

Just half-an-hour’s drive from Alicante, Monovar is the Costa Blanca’s wine cellar. Two particular varieties of grape are fostered in this part of Spain. Monastrel is turned into velvety reds, while fondillon is turned into a sweet dessert wine. You can also enjoy the town if you’re teetotal. The Romans and Moors left some interesting relics here, including a now crumbled, hilltop castle.

This beach’s claim to fame is the fact it was used as a film set for the award-winning television series Benidorm. Days on this stretch of sand are action-packed. There’s a wet playground with slides, diving boards and rafts in the sea, and the sand is backed by a promenade full of bars, restaurants and shops.

Poniente Beach in Benidorm is all singing and all dancing. It’s home to miles of white sand and rows of palm trees, and it’s got Blue Flag accreditation. What’s more, it sidles up to a brand new promenade, which cost a jaw-dropping 11 million euros to build.

This mystery play is so ingrained in the Costa Blanca’s culture that UNESCO have added it to their List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It’s performed every August and the two acts describe the death and the passage into heaven of the Virgin Mary. Despite Elche’s size, it’s not a small show. More than 300 volunteers get involved and the town’s entire population comes to watch it.

Elche is the only place in the world where a thorny welcome is no bad thing. This city, 25 minutes from Alicante, is best known for its botanical gardens, which are strewn with cacti and palm trees. These plants aren’t just the run-of-the-mill kind, either. Some of the cacti look more like watermelons than your standard Wild-West shapes. And some of the specialised palms look like candelabras.

You’ll find this Blue Flag stretch in the north of Denia. It comes with all the trimmings, including sunloungers, parasols, and showers. Sports are available in and out of the water – hire a pedalo and you can head out into the sea or play a match on the volleyball pitch.

Javea’s main beach offers the full package. It’s got white sand that slopes gently into the sea, plenty of watersports, and it’s close to a long promenade of bars and restaurants. Occasionally, during the summer, an open-air cinema is set up on the sand.

You only need one thing to qualify for a house in Guadalest – a head for heights. This gravity-defying village, half an hour’s drive from Benidorm, is perched on the top of a sheer-sided cliff. Back in the 8^th century it was an important military outpost, but now its etch-a-sketch streets are filled with museums, lace shops, and pavement cafés.

Terra Mitica in Benidorm is the Costa Blanca’s answer to Alton Towers or Thorpe Park. The white-knuckle rides at this theme park include the Synkope, a metronome-style ride that swings you through the air at 80 miles per hour. The Flight of the Phoenix is another spine-tingler. This one freefalls from 54 metres in the air.

With its rainbow-coloured tubes and chutes, Aqualandia waterpark in Benidorm looks like a giant chemistry set. The white knuckle-rides here include the Kamikaze and Black Hole. But the number one ride is the Big Bang, Europe’s highest waterslide, which drops you down to ground with aplomb. The park is also home to a wave pool, a lazy river, and a jungle pool where you can swim through waterfalls.

Alicante shed its basic beach resort skin a long time ago. Of course, the Blue Flag beaches are still an essential part of what the city has to offer. But they’re not the be all and end all. Today, the place is just as well known for its sightseeing opportunities as it is for the sea and sand. The Castell de Santa Barbara is the most-visited sight. This fort towers over the skyline of the city. It was built in the 9^th century as a key defence of the Iberian Peninsula.

Right next to Benidorm’s town centre, Malpas Beach is exhibit A in the case for bigger not always being better. This stretch of sand is one of Benidorm’s smallest, but it never gets as crowded as its neighbours, and it’s backed by great views of the Castle cliffs.

Back in Medieval times, Villajoyosa was a beacon for fishermen. The houses on the waterfront were painted in sweet-shop colours, so it was easy to see the waterfront from out at sea. Today, the town’s pulling power has transferred to tourists, who come here to indulge their sweet teeth in the chocolate shops and to explore the chocolate museum. The drive here takes 20 minutes from Benidorm.

Even before the Costa Blanca’s guidebook-listed waterparks were built, this region had form when it came to aquatic attractions. The Algar Waterfalls, 15 kilometres from Benidorm, are case in point. The falls here are at least 2-storeys tall and there’s a series of natural pools at the foot of them, which you can use like natural Jacuzzis. The brave, meanwhile, climb the cliffs overlooking the cascade and jump off the tops like lemmings.

An hour and a half’s drive from Benidorm, Valencia is a time machine of a city. The scribble-style streets of the Barrio del Carmen take you back through the ages. The cathedral here was built in the 13^th century, while the UNESCO-protected silk market sprang up 100 years later. The City of Arts and Sciences, meanwhile, throws you forward to the future. The physics-defying architecture alone looks like it belongs to the space age.

In August every year, the people of Denia take the Pampalonian concept of the running of the bulls and reverse it. This festival sees the locals chasing unleashed bulls through the streets with the aim of herding them into the sea. The event is the culmination of the town’s summer festival.