Qualla: Benidorm Island

Benidorm Island: Introduction

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carlos Menendez San Juan, CC BY-SA 2.0. Look up from the crowded beaches of Benidorm toward the mountains inland, and you may notice something odd about the ridge of Puig Campana: a clean, square notch bitten from its summit, as if someone had snapped off a piece and thrown it away. According to local legend, that is exactly what happened. And the missing fragment, the story goes, is the small island that now floats a few kilometers offshore.

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Image: Carlos Menendez San Juan | CC BY-SA 2.0

Benidorm Island: The Sword and the Missing Peak

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MOs810, CC BY-SA 4.0. The most colorful version stars Roldán, the Spanish name for Roland, a warrior in the army of Charlemagne. The tale has him fighting a Moorish chieftain on the summit of Puig Campana. Roldán had the upper hand, and with his opponent at his mercy he swung his great sword Durandart...

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Image: MOs810 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Benidorm Island: The Island of Peacocks

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY 2.0. Benidorm Island was once called Peacock Island, Illa dels Paons in Valencian and Isla de los Pavos Reales in Spanish, though no peacocks strut there now. It sits roughly 3.5 kilometers from the mainland, a modest wedge of rock about 350 meters long that rises to cliffs some 70 me...

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Image: CC BY 2.0

Benidorm Island: A Wild Place in a Package-Holiday Sea

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ad Meskens, CC BY-SA 3.0. The contrast is the whole charm of it. Benidorm the town is a wall of high-rises and a beach packed elbow to elbow, one of the most concentrated resort skylines in Europe. The island is the opposite: a protected nature reserve within the Serra Gelada Natural Park, left deliberate...

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Image: Ad Meskens | CC BY-SA 3.0

Benidorm Island: Approaching by Water

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Carmen Sanz Cabedo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Come by boat and the island performs a slow reveal. From the harbor it is a smudge; halfway across it hardens into cliff and scrub; up close it towers, and the glass-bottomed cruisers slow so passengers can watch the seabed slide past beneath their feet. A path climbs from the sm...

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Image: Carmen Sanz Cabedo | CC BY-SA 4.0