Go in through the tunnel cut in the rock, which is the only entrance to the upper village

Climb to the bell tower on its own spur and look down at the reservoir

Find out what happened in 1708 and why most of the castle is missing

Go into the Casa Orduña, rebuilt after it was burned in the same year

Walk down to the reservoir, which was started in 1953 and not finished until 1971

El Castell de Guadalest is entered through a tunnel cut in the rock, because there is no other way in. The Muslims built the castle of San José on the crag in the 11th century; in 1708, during the War of the Spanish Succession, it was blown up and the west wing was wrecked, and the Casa Orduña below was burned. What is left is a bell tower standing alone on a spike of rock above a turquoise reservoir, which is one of the most photographed views in the Valencian country. The reservoir itself was begun in 1953 and finished in 1971.

Guadalest: The Bell Tower on the Rock

Climb to the Plaza de la Iglesia and look up at the blue-and-white tiled dome

Work out why Altea survived the 1960s when everything either side of it did not

Walk the whitewashed lanes and count the studios and galleries

Swim off the pebble beaches, which is the other half of the reason it was left alone

Come up at sunset, when the whole old town faces the right way

Altea is the one town on this stretch of the Costa Blanca that was not flattened and rebuilt in the 1960s — a whitewashed old quarter climbing a hill above the bay, with the blue-and-white tiled dome of the Virgen del Consuelo on top of it, visible from most of the coast. It became an artists' town from the 1950s and has kept a disproportionate number of studios and galleries. Below it the beaches are pebble rather than sand, which is exactly why the developers went elsewhere.

Altea: The White Town Above the Bay

Climb the marked path to the summit — a daily cap of three hundred people has applied on it since 2020

Find the rupicolous endemics on the way up: silene of Ifach, Ifach germander, rock scabious, Valencian rock violet

Work out the geology: this is one of the last outliers of the Betic ranges, joined to land only by an isthmus

Look for the seabirds on the seaward face, which is where they nest

Work out why a park of 45 hectares needs a daily visitor cap at all

The Peñón de Ifach is a 332-metre limestone mass — one of the last outliers of the Betic ranges — dropping straight into the sea at Calpe and joined to the mainland only by a detrital isthmus. It was made a natural park on 19 January 1987 and covers just 45 hectares, which makes it one of the smallest in Spain. Its value is the rock-dwelling plants: the nearly extinct silene of Ifach, the Ifach germander, a rare thyme, the rock scabious and the Valencian rock violet all grow here and effectively nowhere else.

Peñón de Ifach: A Rock With Its Own Endemic Plants

Eat gamba roja in Dénia and find out why it costs what it does

Go to the fish auction in the port and watch the boxes go

Climb into the Montgó natural park behind the town for the view along the coast to Ibiza on a clear day

Walk the Les Rotes coast north of town, which is rock and coves rather than sand

Go into the castle between the town and the port and work out how many periods are in the walls

Dénia sits under the Montgó, a limestone massif rising straight off the sea, with a castle between the town and the port and the Balearics a short crossing away. It is a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, and the thing it is known for is the gamba roja — a deep-water red prawn taken off this stretch of coast, sold at auction in the port and treated with a seriousness that surprises people the first time they see the price. North of the town the Les Rotes coast is rock and small coves; south of it the beach runs for kilometres of sand.

Dénia: The Coast Under the Montgó

Climb into the Covetes dels Moros and work out that there is no original way up to them

Work through the theories — granary, refuge, burial — and decide which one the shape supports

Find the bullring cut directly out of the rock rather than built

Walk the medieval quarter on the cliff edge above the Clariano

Go into the old ice wells on the sierra above, where snow was stored for the summer

In a cliff face above Bocairent there are dozens of small rectangular chambers cut into the rock in rows, opening onto nothing — no path, no stair, no floor below them. They are called the Covetes dels Moros, and nobody is certain what they were: granaries, refuges and burial chambers have all been argued. They are generally dated to the Islamic period. The town below is built into the rock itself, with a bullring cut out of the hillside and a network of medieval streets on the cliff edge above the Clariano.

Bocairent: A Cliff Full of Cut Chambers

Find the portrait of Philip V in the Museu de l'Almodí and check which way up it is hanging

Work out why: the town was burned in 1707 and renamed after the man in the picture

Walk the length of the castle along the ridge — it is two castles, the Castell Menor and the Castell Major

Find out which popes came from here, and what the Borja family did next

Find the Gothic Sant Feliu church below the castle, one of the oldest buildings left after the fire

Xàtiva backed the Austrian side in the War of the Spanish Succession, and in 1707 Bourbon troops burned the town in reprisal. Philip V then renamed it San Felipe, after himself; the Cortes of Cádiz gave the old name back in 1811. The town has not forgotten. In its museum hangs a portrait of Philip V, and it hangs upside down. Xàtiva was also the cradle of the Borja popes — Calixtus III and Alexander VI — and the twin castle on the ridge above, praised by al-Idrisi in the 12th century for its beauty and strength, runs along the whole crest.

Xàtiva: The Town Hung Upside Down

Go into the municipal archaeological museum and find out which pieces are still there after the theft of 27 August 2026

Work out why the iron pieces matter: the oldest found in Spain, from when iron was still a precious metal

Find out who José María Soler García was and what he found near this town in 1963

Climb to the Atalaya castle on the hill above the town

Come for the Moros y Cristianos, which is one of the biggest in the Valencian country

The Villena archaeologist José María Soler García found the treasure in 1963: fifty-nine objects in gold, silver, iron and amber weighing almost ten kilos, the most important gold vessel hoard in Spain and the second in Europe after the royal tombs at Mycenae. Its iron pieces are the oldest found in Spain, from a period when iron was still a precious metal worth hoarding. On the night of 27 August 2026 much of it was stolen — mostly the gold, with several silver pieces left behind — so check what is actually on display before you go.

Villena: A Bronze Age Hoard of Gold

Walk the castle ridge, which runs the length of the hill and covers every period from Iberian to Napoleonic

Sit in the Roman theatre cut into the hillside below the castle

Work out what Hannibal actually wanted here: money, men and a fortress for his brother

Find the Jewish quarter on the slope below the castle, one of the best preserved in Valencia

Work out how an eight-month siege of one town started a war that reached Italy

Sagunto was the Iberian oppidum of Arse, trading across the Mediterranean from the 6th century BC, and it became Roman Saguntum. In 219 BC Hannibal besieged it, and the townspeople's whole strategy was that their walls would hold long enough for help to come. It took him eight months. He wanted the place intact — to fund the march on Rome with its plunder, to conscript its fit men, and to leave his brother Hasdrubal a stronghold near Qart Hadasht, modern Cartagena — and that is exactly what he got. The siege is the trigger for the Second Punic War.