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A path through planted pines and dunes opening onto the long beach at Guardamar del Segura
Reviewed August 2026
Guardamar Del Segura

Guardamar del Segura: river mouth, dunes and a planted forest

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Guardamar del Segura stands at the mouth of the River Segura, the last town on the river before it reaches the Mediterranean. The name means "guardian of the sea", and for most of its history the settlement watched the river crossing from a walled town on a low hill. The Guardamar of today sits on flatter ground nearer the coast, behind a belt of pine forest that was planted on purpose to stop the town being buried by sand.

From the hill to the present town

The old town grew around a castle on the hill by the river, with roots running back through the medieval Islamic and Christian periods to much earlier settlement. The 1829 Vega Baja earthquake destroyed the walled town and its castle. As across the rest of the comarca, the survivors rebuilt on a safer plan, moving down towards the coast and laying out a regular grid of wide streets. The castle ruins and stretches of wall still stand on the hill above the modern centre.

The dunes and the forest

Through the nineteenth century the coast became a serious threat. Pine woods that had covered the area were felled in the eighteenth century for shipbuilding and never replanted, and without them the dunes moved inland. By the 1890s wind-driven sand was reaching the northern edge of the town.

In 1896 the forestry engineer Francisco Mira y Botella began to fix the dunes. Working over nearly three decades, he held the sand with lines of marram grass and brushwood and then planted pines behind them, along with palms, eucalyptus and other trees. Several hundred thousand trees went in over the following decades. The result is the pinewood that now runs for several kilometres between the town and the beach, divided into the Alfonso XIII and Reina Sofía parks. A museum in the town, the Casa-Museo Ingeniero Mira, records the project.

Beaches

Guardamar has around 11 kilometres of coast, most of it fine sand backed by dunes and pine. The central beaches near the town are the busiest and the best served. Those towards the river mouth and to the south, such as Los Tusales, El Moncayo and Les Ortigues, are quieter and lie directly against the dune landscape. Several have held Blue Flag status. At the river mouth the Marina de las Dunas provides moorings and water-sports facilities.

Archaeology at the river mouth

The ground around the Segura mouth has produced some of the most important archaeological finds in the region. At Cabezo Lucero, an Iberian site with a necropolis, excavations in 1987 recovered a carved limestone female bust now known as the Lady of Guardamar, dated to roughly 400 BC and stylistically close to the well-known Lady of Elche. It is displayed at the MARQ archaeological museum in Alicante.

In the dunes lies the Rábita Califal, an Islamic religious complex of small mosques and cells. A founding inscription dates one of its mosques to 944, and the site was in use into the early eleventh century. Excavated between 1984 and 1992, it is regarded as the most complete surviving Umayyad ribat known. Nearby is the Phoenician trading settlement of La Fonteta. Many of the smaller objects are held in the town's archaeological and ethnographic museum in the Casa de Cultura.

Festivals

Guardamar keeps the calendar common to the coast. Bonfires are burnt for the June solstice around Saint John's night in the Hogueras tradition, and the town holds a Moors and Christians festival in the second half of July, which includes a landing on the beach.

Visiting Guardamar

  • The castle hill, the grid of the rebuilt centre, the pine parks and the central beach are all close together and walkable.
  • Paths lead through the forest to the quieter southern beaches and, at the river mouth, to the Rábita.
  • The archaeological museum in the Casa de Cultura is the place to understand the sites before walking out to them.
  • Beach facilities and museum opening times vary by season, so check locally.

Guardamar is the seaward end of a chain of Explore stories along the river. Upstream lie Rojales and its water heritage, the small huerta village of Benijófar and the rebuilt market town of Almoradí.

Sources

Reviewed in August 2026 using the Comunitat Valenciana tourism service, Guardamar's municipal tourism office, the MARQ archaeological museum and published archaeological work on the Rábita Califal and Cabezo Lucero. Beach services, museum hours and festival dates change, so confirm current details before a visit.