Best Historic-Quarter Stays in Benidorm

Old Quarter streets behind the high-rise skyline

Hotel Castillo Benidorm sits in the city centre a four-minute walk from Poniente Beach, Plaza Mayor Square and the Church of San Jaime and Santa Ana, putting guests inside the old quarter's walkable core rather than looking at it from a Levante tower across town on the other side of the headland. The child-friendly buffet and tour desk on-site add practical support for exploring further afield, whether that means Guadalest inland or simply the next street of the Casco Antiguo itself, still largely untouched by the high-rise development further along the coast toward Rincón de Loix.

Ambassador Playa II occupies a Rincón de Loix position but keeps its own historical footnote as one of the area's longer-standing hotels, its spa facilities and family-friendly restaurant built up over successive renovations rather than a recent build, giving it a settled character among newer Levante towers that opened decades after it first welcomed guests to this stretch of the Costa Blanca coastline near the beach itself and the promenade running alongside it toward the old town. Its position also keeps Casino Mediterráneo and Benidorm Palace within a few minutes' walk, both landmarks from the same earlier decades of Benidorm's tourism history.

Hotel Gold Arcos 4 Sup takes the opposite approach, a modern luxury build under a kilometre from Casino Mediterráneo Benidorm, its rooftop pool and city-view balconies offering a contemporary counterpoint to the Casco Antiguo's older streets a short walk away, a useful reminder that Benidorm's history runs in two directions at once, backward toward the fishing village and forward toward the skyline it eventually became across the following decades of tourism-driven growth along the coast. Guests who want both the modern rooftop pool and a walk through the older streets nearby get the best of both eras from a single central base.

Anna's apartment sits close to Benidorm Palace and Casino Mediterráneo, both landmarks from the town's earlier tourism era before the tallest towers went up, making the walk from here into the old quarter pass through some of Benidorm's longest-established entertainment venues, a route that effectively traces the town's growth from fishing village through mid-century tourism boom to the modern resort it has become today, one street and one decade at a time along the same stretch of coastline. The apartment's own washing machine and sea view add a practical, longer-stay comfort that the era's original hotels along this route were never built to offer.

Before the towers, Benidorm was a small fishing settlement clustered around what is now the Casco Antiguo, its streets narrow enough that cars still struggle through some of them today, decades after the first high-rises went up along the coast either side of the old quarter. The Iglesia de San Jaime y Santa Ana, with its distinctive blue-tiled dome, anchors the old quarter's main square, and the Balcón del Mediterráneo viewpoint just beyond it looks out over both Levante and Poniente from the same rocky point that once separated two fishing coves before the town grew around them. That headland is the closest thing Benidorm has to a historic centre, and every stay on this list sits within reach of it on foot.