The charms of the Costa Blanca have been known to beach users for many years and now walkers and mountaineers are learning from their Spanish friends how beautiful the mountains are for walking. Rising abruptly from the sea to over 1400m these mountains provide craggy scenery, deep impenetrable gorges, wild flowers and occasional fleeting glimpses of wild boar and other animals.
The going underfoot varies from easy to rough and rocky, with limestone being the predominant rock.
Join us on a walk!
The Costa Blanca Mountain Walkers (who have developed and maintain this site) organise walks every Wednesday and Saturday from late September through to the end of May. Visit their website for the programme of walks and details of how to participate.
Other good walking sites
A number of other sites have information about walking in the area, and walking guides available to download. Often you’ll find walks which are also on this site, but written up in a different way.
- http://www.abdet.com/walking-holidays-spain/free-walking-guides-spain
- http://topwalks.net/en/index.htm
- Bob and Jean Hall’s Costa Blanca Mountain Walks
- Michael Davies’ Walks
- Las Rutas de Moskys
There are 2 relatively new long distance walks if you want to undertake something longer and requiring accommodation. The GR330 runs all through the interior of the Valencia community and you can find more info here
There is also a long distance route running through all of the Catalunyan speaking regions of Spain – including Mallorca and Valencia, simply called El Cami. It has several variants and signs in our area consist of double red horseshoe symbols end to end. More details of the route in Catalan here.
Recommended maps
The best walking maps (which cover part, but not all, of this area) are Marina Alta and Marina Baixa.
You can check out the areas which these maps cover at Map of Marina Alta at Terrafirma
Where to Stay
A good option for many is to hire a villa, of which there are an abundance available in the area. The Costa Blanca is popular with expats from the UK, Germany, Holland, etc. who have moved out to the region and who rent out their properties for part of the year, so there many available which have been decorated to a high standard and are yet fairly reasonably priced. Most of these tend to be along the coastal areas, but they also extend into the area known on websites as the Jalon Valley. The latter is probably a better base if you’re planning to walk most of the time, as driving in from the coast can take longer than you would expect!
Along the coastal towns there are many large hotels as well as villas, and places to stay vary from (from south to north) Benidorm with its hedonistic charms; Altea – an old world village; Calpe – a rival to Benidorm but with a wild buttress guarding its harbour; and the twin towns of Denia – an old still working port and ferry station – and Javea, a more up-market beach resort. All of these give access to the mountains of the interior and within an hour many wonderful and lonely walking areas can be reached.
In the mountainous hinterland the accommodation is more likely to be of a Spanish nature – small rural hotels, or self-catering rooms with a shared communal sitting area and kitchen. Search on the Internet for “casa rural” or “hotel rural”, and remember that the Jalon Valley is known as the Vall de Pop by Spaniards.