Village
El Campello is a coastal municipality in the province of Alicante, 13 km northeast of the capital; it has 31,419 inhabitants (2025) and tourism is today one of the mainstays of its economy. It was a fishing settlement that grew up in the shelter of a watchtower and formed a rural district of Alicante until its separation in 1901, when it gained its own town council. On the Illeta dels Banyets peninsula, which was an island until the 1940s, it preserves one of the most important archaeological sites in the Mediterranean, with Bronze Age remains, an Iberian settlement and a Roman villa with small baths and pools linked to the sea where fish were raised, known as the Baños de la Reina after a legend that attributes them to a Moorish queen.
Activity
El Campello dedicates its patronal festival to the Virgen del Carmen, around 16 July, with a maritime procession recognised as a Fiesta de Interés Turístico Provincial since 2021; its Moors and Christians, in honour of the Mare de Déu dels Desemparats, was moved to 15 October, the feast of Santa Teresa, so as not to coincide with the fishing season.
Monument
Archaeological site located on a small peninsula of El Campello (Alicante), one of the most important in the Mediterranean and declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection). It shows signs of occupation from the late third millennium BC, with an Iberian settlement from the 5th century BC devoted to processing agricultural produce and preserving fish, abandoned in the 3rd century BC. On its ruins a Roman agricultural villa was built, with small baths and pools connected to the sea for raising fish, which gave the area its popular name of Baños de la Reina. The floor plans of two temples also stand out, one dedicated to the Semitic goddess Tanit and the other Latin; the last period of occupation, already Islamic, dates from the 11th century. Until 1944 it was a peninsula only partly joined to the mainland.
Curiosity
The Illeta dels Banyets, also popularly known as Banyets de la Reina, is an archaeological site located within the municipal boundaries of El Campello that brings together occupations from the late third millennium BC. In the 5th century BC an Iberian settlement was established here with facilities for processing agricultural produce and preserving fish, abandoned in the 3rd century BC. In Roman times an agricultural villa was built on the ruins, with small baths and pools connected to the sea for fish farming, from which the name Banyets comes. The last period of occupation is Islamic, up to the 11th century. Until 1944 the site was an island; that year a blast opened an artificial isthmus that destroyed part of its remains.
Activity
El Campello celebrates its Moors and Christians festival from the 11th to the 15th of October, with a Moorish landing on the beach, declared a Festival of Provincial Tourist Interest; its patronal festivities, around the 16th of July, honor the Virgen del Carmen with a maritime procession.
Monument
A 16th-century watchtower raised beside the site of the Illeta dels Banyets to give warning of Barbary pirate attacks on the coast of El Campello.
Monument
Roman-era fish farm carved into the rock, on the small peninsula of the Illeta dels Banyets by the coast of El Campello, with ponds and sluices for fish breeding and one of the best-preserved remains of its kind in the Mediterranean. It was part of a Roman agricultural villa that also had small baths, and it is from these ponds that the popular name Baños de la Reina comes. The site stopped being an island in 1944, when an isthmus was built using a blast that destroyed part of the site; since 2006 there have been plans to turn it into an archaeological park and restore its status as an island, separated by a wooden footbridge.
Nature
A half-wild cove of shingle and calm, clear water, whose name recalls the old farming practice of soaking the esparto grass gathered on the nearby hills.
Monument
The Torre de Reixes, or del Barranc d'Aigües, rises in El Campello on the cerro de Reixes, from where the coast is dominated. Built in the 16th century, it served as a watchtower dependent on the castle of Santa Bárbara in Alicante, within the defensive system against attacks by Barbary pirates, with which it communicated by smoke and light signals to warn of their raids between 1554 and 1557. It has a cylindrical plan set on a base, eight metres in diameter and ten in height, built in masonry like other watchtowers on the Valencian coast. It has lost its upper part, although the rest of the body is well preserved.
Historical milestone
The fishermen's settlement grown under the shelter of the watchtower depended on Alicante until 1901, when it obtained its own town council. The segregation came after years of demands by residents on account of the distance from the capital and the lack of services.
Food and drink
The trawling and trammel fleet unloads octopus, cuttlefish, red mullet and prawn every afternoon, which are auctioned downwards at the port's fish market. A good part is cooked in the bay itself in brothy rice dishes, in salted preparations or simply on the griddle.