Benidorm

It may be a massive eyesore, but spread those tourists out horizontally - the way they have done in Marbella or , further down, the coast from Benidorm in Torrevieja and numerous other spots - and they go on for ever. If Benidorm, with its twenty-four square miles and 12.3 kilometres of coastline really does account for 5 per cent of foreign holidaymakers (38.000 hotel rooms of some 700.000) in Spain, then, in theory, the rest could be plonked on an island the size of, say, Ibiza. Alternatively, more of them could still be shovelled into little Benidorm - where buildings land is by no means all used up.
Benidorm's beach is still beautiful. But now you have ti hire a top-floor suite at the Bali if you want to appreciate just how majestic those twin curves of gold are. Most visitors are left to glimpse it through a thickt of buildings. The beach is cleaned every night by machines which churn up and filter the sand. This system is now used all over Spain. A reecnt newspaper report tells how a woman who fell asleep on a beach was swallowed up by one of the machines. A sign in one, older, beachside hotel overshadowed by the Bali, reminded me thet Benidorm's reputation for the cheap and shoddy would never quite go. ?Clients are reminded that reception has a special thinner available to help you remove grease or tat from your feet', it read.
From the book "Ghosts of Spain" by Giles Tremlett.