Benicassim

3rd November

47 miles

It's really no distance at all from the Ebro delta to here, but you do sense that you have moved between two different sorts of Mediterranean landscape. North of the delta it is verdant, the same mix of arid garrigue softened by millennia of human habitation into a Claudian idyllic pastoral that forms a sweeping arc on the shores of the Mediterranean from Catalonia to the Roman Campania. South of the delta, the landscape takes on a more scrub-like look, with patches of citrus groves separated  by stony uncultivated ground, with low spiky bushes punctuated by the occasional palm tree. The buildings by the side of the road have a boxy appearance; when whitewashed looking distinctly Arabic, but often just left semi-finished with sides of grey crumbling concrete. The look of the place reminds you instantly of Southern Greece, or the tip of Sicily beyond Syracuse.  It may, to a northerner's eye look unkempt, but it is hardly unproductive. Judging by the range of fruits and vegetables growing in the rough unhedged fields next to the road, the soil seems so fertile that if you tossed an apple core out of the window you might be picking fruit by the following week!

Benicassim itself is situated on a broad sandy bay beneath a curve of  reddish coloured mountains, reminiscent of the cliffs east of Cassis. There the resemblance ends. No swanky, up market French wannabe St Tropez here! Though no package holiday mega-resort like Benidorm or Torremilinos either, nevertheless, Benicassim's bay is lined with eight storey high apartment blocks; it is a substantial resort. 

Part gentile resort, part high-rise.

This was some kind of sea-front lending library

huge sweeping sandy bay with the odd palm tree

60s apartment blocks line the front.

Hotel Voramar, an older hotel at the end of the esplanade. It was used as hospital during the Civil War.

The eastern end of the bay, near Camping Azahar where we are  staying, is slightly less developed and gives a flavour of Bencassim before the 'fun in the sun' boom of the 70s and 80s. Fin de siècle villas line the esplanade. The tourist office has placed information boards explaining the origin of each one. During the first thirty years of the twentieth century these villas hosted parties for the region's smart set - politicians, industrial magnates, film stars....it all sounds like something out of Scott Fitzgerald.

The onset of the civil war swept this away. As the communist brigades advanced the rich villa owners fled and their stylish houses were purloined by the army. Some were used as billets, others as hospitals.  Villa Amparo housed a library and hosted lectures and Soviet made propaganda films. Ernest Hemingway lived here and later the pioneering photographer Cartier-Bresson stayed a guest.

Villa Amparo

We only intended to take a stroll down the sea-front but in the end walked all the way into the town centre, Built as a bourgeois suburb of nearby Castelllon, it retains a pleasant small town atmosphere, at least off-season. What it would be like midsummer when the many apartment blocks are fully occupied one can only guess. Right now though, I sense Benicassim's charm, even if we are adding to the Eastbourne ambiance by swelling the small flock of grey-haired tourists grazing the promenade.

The lesser spotted grey-hair, like pigeons, an urban blight.

Narrow streets in the old town.

Unusually, a brick built church.

not all bourgeois ennui, Spanish graffiti can be cool...

and then there is the question of the black Lego panels... what's that about?

Afternoon coffee at Hotel Voramar....

the apotheosis of a simple cortado....