Guadalest

One of the most photographed towns in all of Spain has to be Guadalest.

Guadalest or to give it its full title El Castell de Guadalest is one of the most beautiful Villages in all of Spain. .

No matter what time of year you visit Guadalest the breathtaking scenery is a sight to behold.

The popular holiday town of Benidorm is only 25 kilometres from Guadalest. Many of the tourists that visit Guadalest come on free Blanket trips from Benidorm.

Guadalest is one of the destinations offered in Benidorm by what are know as Blanket trips.

A blanket trip is when a company will offer a free half or full day coach trip.

The company then at some point takes you to their premise where you can buy their goods. The goods are usually very expensive so your free trip can turn out to be costly. But if you don't buy what you don't want, then you can have a nice day out for very little cost.

The bell tower in the photograph below is for the village church and is accessed from the Orduña House.

The Tower is perched high on the hill that is over the access tunnel into the old town.

This Bell Tower is perhaps the most recognised landmark of Guadalest. The Bell Tower is visible from a few kilometres away as you approach Guadalest

Guadalest overlooks a reservoir which is really as blue as it looks on the photograph.

Modern day Guadalest is split into two parts. The first is the lower village which houses most of Guadalest's two hundred inhabitants.

If you look at the photographs below you can see that most of the modern buildings are on the far side of the main road.

There are some older buildings in the lower part of the village and these are the ones with red pan tiled roofs.

The old buildings in the lower village on the near side of the road are a section of the tourist part of Guadalest.

The older buildings are now the cafés, souvenir shops and exhibits of interest.

Modern day Guadalest is split into two parts the lower village which houses most of two hundred inhabitants,

If you look at the photographs below you can see that most of the modern buildings are on the far side of the main road there are a few older buildings that form the beginning of the older part of Guadalest and they are easy to distinguish because of the red pan tiled roofs.

These old buildings in the lower village are a section of the tourist part of Guadalest as they have the nice red tiled roofs and white walls and are cafés, souvenir shops or exhibits of interest.

Entering the tourist section of Guadalest the first thing you will encounter is a café bar where many of the tourists like sit and enjoy the pleasant atmosphere watching the world go by while having a cool drink and something to eat. Like most Spanish café bars the food is excellent and not badly priced.

One of the several Museums that Guadalest has is the Belen Dolls house Museum which houses scale model houses and churches built with natural elements and into the rock face. The most interesting scale model is the one of a giant "Ciudad-Belen" from the beginning of this century.

The cost of admission into this museum is very reasonable and it is well worth paying the three euros for an adult. We purchased a family ticket which was cheaper than buying two adult's and two children’s ticket separately.

Before you get to the upper part of Guadalest there is the MagicGarden the entrance to this was free but there was someone at the entrance to give you an information sheet in your own language to help you appreciate the Garden and there was a donation box that you could put money into.

Leaving the Magic Garden there is a short walk up to the tunnel known as the ‘Portal de San José’. The Portal de San José is still the only way into the oldest part of the town.

The town of Guadalest is unique in that the old town centre is perched right on the top of a rock outcrop.

Even today the only way to access the old town is via the 15 meter long, man made, tunnel through solid rock.

This hub proved to be much longer than I thought it would be. Because it is so long already I am going to split it in two parts.

This seems a good place to end part one at the ‘Portal de San José’ entrance to the old town. I hope you have enjoyed the photos.

Thank you for your visit please take time out to leave your comments.