The sea and mountains of Denia, Spain

It’s located just 1.5 hours southeast of Valencia along the coast, but Denia’s land/sea scape differs considerably. Although Valencia is close to the sea, when in the city it feels remote. Throughout Denia, on the other hand, the sea connection feels intimate. There are mountains around Valencia, but they are distant and the city is flat. The mountains around Denia, in contrast, are close by and loom over the city.

In this post, I’ll acquaint you with Denia’s landscapes. Keep in mind two other big differences. Valencia is the 3rd largest city in Spain, with a population of nearly 1 million, whereas Denia has only 50,000 inhabitants. Valencia attracts many tourists, but Denia is primarily a tourist destination. This part of the Spanish coastline is referred to as the Costa Blanca (white coast).

The history of Denia

Like Valencia, Denia was founded by the Romans, who used it as an important trading port. The Visogoths were next, followed by five decades of Muslim rule. The Catholics seized Denia in 1244, just a few years after capturing Valencia.

After the “reconquest”, pirates made the Valencian coast the most dangerous border of the Spanish kingdom during the 16th century. In response, the king developed a centralized defense system—building many towers at strategic locations along the coast. A 9-mile round-trip hike from Denia’s center took me to Torre de Gerro, one of the 16th-century watch towers.

Because the region is dominated by limestone, there are many caves that were used by early humans. Artifacts of Homo sapiens found in local caves date back at least 8,000 years. Artifacts from earlier Homo groups in other nearby caves go back at least 350,000 years.

Importance of the sea

Denia is situated along an indented part of the coast that provides a natural harbor, and over the years it has been enhanced by the addition of breakwaters. Throughout the city’s history, the sea has been an essential ingredient of daily life. Trading is less important today, but tourists swarm here for the lovely beaches and large variety of water sports. Fishing continues, of course, and in 2015 Denia became a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy, largely because of its fish and seafood creations.

[Did you know that two U.S. cities are on this UNESCO list? One is San Antonio, Texas, which was recognized for its role in developing the fusion Tex-Mex cuisine, and Tucson, Arizona, which was recognized for its Sonoran Mexican cuisine.]

And next—the mountains

Because of the elevation change from sea to summit, and the limestone rock type, the mountain harbors an unusually rich collection of flora and fauna. For this reason, and because of its important archaeological finds, in 1987, the area was declared a protected Natural Preserve. There are many hiking trails—someday I’ll return with more time and a hiking buddy!

The geology of these mountains

Take another look at the Sierra de Segária photo above. As on Montgó, there are thin layers of limestone and mud overlain by a thick massive layer. But the layers are all tilted toward the west, and they are repeated at least three times to the west. These look like layers that were stacked upon each other by thrust faults. The arrows show the direction of motion that would cause this stacking. Thrust faults are formed by compressive stresses, which makes sense in this environment.

On the map above, notice that the fault lines are about uniformly oriented from northeast to southwest along the entire southeast edge of Spain—from Denia to Gibraltar. These mountains are known as the Cordillera Bética.

If you have read some of my other posts about countries around the Mediterranean, you may remember that this sea is a remnant of what was once a very large ocean called the Tethys. For example, this post from Northern Spain has a map of what the circum-Mediterranean area would have looked like in the Cretaceous Period, around 100 million years ago, when the limestone in the Denia region was deposited: https://landscapes-revealed.net/the-basque-geopark-60-million-years-in-20-km/.

Since about 60 million years ago, Africa has been colliding with Europe and the sea between them has been shrinking. The Alps and extensions to the east and west are a result of this continental collision. The Bética range is one of the more recent parts of the collision, occurring about 20 million years ago. The collision provided the compressive forces that caused the limestone to be uplifted from the sea and deformed by faults, such as the ones shown above in the Sierra de Segária, and folds, shown in the photo below.

Since the continental collision lifted this area from the sea, erosion created valleys and left mountains as isolated blocks, leaving us with this stunning landscape of steep-sided mountains rising abruptly next to the gorgeous blue Mediterranean Sea.

Last words

John Dos Passos, an American writer who lived from 1896–1970, traveled extensively in Europe as a young man. I found this poem that he wrote about Denia—it well captures the essential ingredients of the land and sea. Because of formatting difficulties, I used back slashes to indicate a new line in the poem.

How fine to die in Denia / young in the ardent strength of sun / calm in the burning blue of the sea / in the stable clasp of the iron hills; Denia where the earth is red / as rust and hills grey like ash. O to rot into the ruddy soil / to melt into the omnipotent fire / of the young white god, the flame god the sun / to find swift resurrection in the warm grapes born of earth and sun / that are crushed to must under the feet / of girls and lads, to flow for new generations of men / a wine full of earth of sun.