Our grand tour of southern Spain in a motorhome January 25th Day Eleven Is Benidorm worth visiting?

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 Wednesday 25^th January Day eleven

Is Benidorm worth visiting?

A sleepless night. The heating kept cutting out. Then we lost all 230v power into the motorhome. The PSU was dead, lifeless, without bright little lights! Then loads of Truma panel warnings (or trauma panel as it has now been renamed). Error codes we’ve never seen before, prompting mad scrambles for the internet to search out meaning! I got up in the night several times and each time found that the power would be off, then on, then off, then on again! And no – I don’t drink!

This morning I have checked all fuses, all connecting cables internally and unplugged, reset and restarted the EHU several times. All trip switches are as they should be internally and out on the power bollard. I’m at a loss and out of patience as my very forbearing wife has pointed out gently several times. She is a saint! We have left it all behind are now sat on the tram being whisked along to Benidorm, alongside gorgeous golden sandy beaches which make up the Costa Brava. Surprisingly it is taking an hour to get there.

We have just arrived and everything is as I expected it to be. In the summer the population densities within these streets, both walking, and living in the flats and apartments must be genuinely utterly horrendous! This is mass tourism gone insanely, madly wrong.

And yet, amidst this amorphous mass of buildings, there is a beauty, of a sort, if you look hard enough. Its brightly coloured for a start! There is a uniqueness, a quality that defies description. English bars and cafes with ‘full English breakfast and a pint’, nail bars, tourist tat shops all compete with small designer boutiques and ‘mini Marrakesh malls’. It’s bonkers planning! Plenty of wealth and just as much poverty, seen in the way people move and dress; in the looks of frustration or simple resignation. Tourism brings wealth but also a low wage economy for many. You may want to read our previous blog post about Benidorm’s tourism successes before reading any further.

 The scenery on the way to Benidorm, was, as always, quite fascinating. Insights into planning law, residential district development and infrastructure provision, or lack of it! The landscape is so dry and so barren, it is a hydrologists worse flooding nightmare – on steroids!

Triassic clays, marls, dolomites, silts and sandstones laid down under the Tethys sea 200 million years ago, now form a yellowly coloured landscape. Back 200 million years ago it’s hard to believe this area was under shallow lagoonal seas. Back north away from this coastal plain, the inland hill ranges – dolomites, sandstones, limestones and metamorphic marbles too. For, 15 million years ago this area was subjected to strong subduction tectonic forces. These deep deposits, built up over eons, below the shallow lagoons, were subducted downwards and then scrapped up at the trench, until they were sufficiently uplifted to form these southern Spain mountain ranges. Subjected to great heat and pressures, the sedimentary rocks were transformed – melted, reheated and turned into metamorphic rocks. It is a geologist’s paradise and by now you will have guessed – geology was my subsidiary degree subject!

We wander the streets of Benidorm, do our dutiful bit and pop into browse in the tourist shops and then return to Alicante where we visit the MARQ archaelogy museum again. It was well worth doing. A stunning building with cleverly arranged exhibits. They should rightly be very proud of it. (see previous post for more information and images)

It was only when we got back late to the campsite that we realised we’d forgotten to visit the Roman ruins outside of town! An excuse then, for coming back this way next year!

 

So, Benidorm – is it worth the tram line journey?

 

Yes, in our opinion but with caveats.

Firstly, there is the beach. Bustling and lively, Levante beach is one of Benidorm’s busiest beaches with every facility you could imagine. Then there is the lively seafront promenade lined with shops and restaurants. The beach by the way has held Blue Flag status since 1987.

Balcón del Mediterráneo, also known as the Castle viewing point, is one of the icons of Benidorm’s historic quarter, marking the boundary between the resort’s two main beaches, the Poniente and the Levante. Attractive views of the bay and of the town’s skyline.

Some good walks in the area as well – you can get guided walk leaflets from the tourist information offices within the town. Take for example, ‘The Benidorm Cross’ walk high up in the Sierra Helada Natural Park; a spectacular panorama over the Mediterranean in a relatively easy, 45-minute walk. (The viewing point’s cross was erected, by the way,  “to atone for the town’s sins” in 1961 — the year when wearing bikinis was first permitted on the beaches!)

You can do day trips out to the villages surrounding Benidorm, such as Altea.  Located on a hill rising above the sea, between Benidorm and Calpe, Altea is a typical Mediterranean town that attracts visitors with its streets and its white houses with wrought-iron balconies. It has plenty of craft shops and terrace-bars. Visit the Nuestra Señora del Consuelo church, with its unusual blue cupolas covered in blue Levantine tiles.  Meanwhile, watched over by the impressive Peñón de Ifach, a 320-metre tall limestone crag, Calpe is an extremely picturesque town with a long history involving many different cultures - Roman ruins in its Baños de la Reina [Queen’s Baths], the remains of an ancient Moorish town wall.

Back in Benidorm – wildlife theme parks, shopping malls, Seaworld aquarium type park, Bike tours, parasailing, Casco Antiguo (the old part of Benidorm with its mixture of heritage, stores and hospitality establishments!!). Take a walk in Parque Natural de la Serra Gelada while looking at beautiful views or go visit the Klein-Schreuder Sculpture Garden with its beautiful plants and magnificent sculptures.  Plenty of ideas here and we didn’t even start scraping the surface of what this town had to offer. That’s probably because we were quite intrigued by all the tourists tat shops in some of the streets! Fascinating what people buy when they are on holiday isn’t it! People watching at its very best!!