Village
A municipality of La Marina Alta, in the province of Alicante, with 12,471 inhabitants (INE 2025) and four kilometres of coast of coves and cliffs, among them Playa de la Fustera, up to the Sierras of Oltá, La Solana and Bernia, the last almost 1,200 metres high. Its name comes from Arabic, sons of Isa, and many rural hamlets still keep Arabic names; it was annexed by James I in 1248, after which it formed a lordship together with Altea, Calpe and Teulada and suffered Barbary pirate attacks in the 15th and 16th centuries, while its population in the countryside remained mostly Muslim. Its oldest surviving monument is a 16th-century lonja, today an exhibition hall, and a neo-Gothic basilica completed in 1929 and known, for its size, as the Cathedral of the Marina.
Activity
The patronal festival of Benissa, the Purísima Xiqueta, is held on the fourth Sunday of April and lasts ten days, combining free concerts, bullfighting events and religious processions. Its most moving moment is the raising and lowering of the image of the Virgin, before and after the main procession. The devotion originates in a local legend: some residents who took in two pilgrims received from them, in gratitude, a miraculous image of the Immaculate Conception, which has since been venerated as the town's patroness.
Monument
Neo-Gothic church in Benissa completed in 1929, known as the 'Cathedral of the Marina' for its size.
Monument
The oldest monument in Benissa, from the 16th century, today converted into an exhibition hall. Markedly medieval in character, it consists of three sections with an ashlar arcade of three arches on the ground floor. It originally combined two uses: the upper floor housed the Town Council, while commercial transactions took place on the lower floor. It now hosts touring exhibitions of high artistic and cultural value.
Nature
Playa de la Fustera, the busiest along Benissa's four kilometres of coastline, set among coves and beaches of sand, gravel or pebbles with rocky bottoms. It has the largest number of services of the whole municipal coastline, as well as areas set aside for sports and children's play.
Curiosity
The place name Benissa comes from the Arabic Beni Isa, 'sons of Isa', the name of a tribe, and numerous rural hamlets still retain Arabic names such as La Alfama, la Rápita or el Rafalet. When the forces of James I of Aragon arrived in 1248, they found an important centre of Arab population and annexed the place to the Kingdom of Valencia; the village then became part of a lordship along with Altea, Calpe and Teulada, whose holders included Roger de Lauria. The Muslim population, a majority and spread across the countryside, lived alongside the Christians of the town centre until the expulsion of the Moriscos in 1609, after which it was repopulated with people from the Pyrenees, Catalonia and Aragon, who walled the village.
Activity
The Purísima Xiqueta is the patronal festival of Benissa, in the Marina Alta, celebrated on the fourth Sunday of April and lasting ten days. The programme includes free concerts, bull festivities, and a deeply felt procession in which the image of the Virgin is carried up and down, followed by a large part of the community.
Activity
Festivities of Moors and Christians of Benissa (La Marina Alta, Alicante), celebrated in honour of San Pedro on the weekend closest to 29 June. They are among the most prominent festivities in the municipality's festive calendar.
Food and drink
Flat pie of maize or wheat flour dough filled with spinach, onion, tomato and sometimes sardine or tuna, baked in the oven. It was the food of the country houses and still appears at the porrats and at the winter festivities of the comarca.