Qualla: Cap de la Nau

Cap de la Nau: Introduction

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joanbanjo, CC BY-SA 3.0. Here the Spanish mainland simply stops. Cap de la Nau is the easternmost point of the whole Valencian Community, a blunt limestone headland where the coast, having run east for kilometre after kilometre, finally turns and gives way to open sea. Beyond the cliffs there is nothing but water until the low smudge of Formentera, the smallest of the Balearic Islands, toward which the cape seems deliberately to point. The name means Cape of the Ship, and from a boat offshore it is not hard to see the prow that sailors imagined in its steep grey mass.

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Image: Joanbanjo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cap de la Nau: Where the Mainland Runs Out

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joanbanjo, CC BY-SA 3.0. A headland this prominent does real work on a map. Cap de la Nau marks the southern limit of the Gulf of Valencia, the great curve of coast that opens to the north, and it closes that gulf like a full stop. It belongs to Xabia, in the comarca of Marina Alta, and it is the sort of...

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Image: Joanbanjo | CC BY-SA 3.0

Cap de la Nau: Cape of the Ship

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Josemanuel assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 2.5. The cape is rocky, steep, and built almost entirely of limestone, the same pale stone that shapes so much of this coastline into cliffs and coves. It rises abruptly from the Mediterranean, and it is easy to understand how it earned its maritime name; approached under sail, the he...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Josemanuel assumed (based on copyright claims). | CC BY-SA 2.5

Cap de la Nau: The Cave of the Organs

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joanbanjo, CC BY-SA 4.0. The most remarkable thing about Cap de la Nau hides where most visitors never see it. Directly beneath the headland opens a large sea cave, the Cova dels Orgues, the Cave of the Organs, which can be reached only from the water. No path descends to it; to enter, you come by boat o...

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Image: Joanbanjo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cap de la Nau: A Coast of Cliffs and Coves

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joanbanjo, CC BY-SA 4.0. Cap de la Nau does not stand in isolation but anchors one of the most dramatic stretches of the Costa Blanca. To the south the cliffs of Benitatxell fall sheer toward hidden coves reachable only on foot or by sea; to the north the coast breaks into the bays and headlands of Xabia...

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Image: Joanbanjo | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cap de la Nau: The Light at 122 Metres

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joanbanjo, CC BY-SA 3.0. Crowning the headland, 122 metres above the waves, stands the Cap de la Nau lighthouse, still doing the job the cape has always demanded of anyone who lived near it: watching the sea and warning those upon it. From the terrace beside the light the view runs down cliffs that fall ...

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Image: Joanbanjo | CC BY-SA 3.0