Xàbia

Xàbia came under Aragonese control in 1244 when Dénia surrendered to King Jaume I, but settlement in the area remained slow until Muslim uprisings led by Al-Azraq finally ended in 1279. The town received the title of vila in 1397, though it remained part of the Marquisate of Dénia. By 1510 it was the most populous settlement in the comarca, with around 930 inhabitants, a figure that doubled to 1,800 within a century.

The expulsion of the Moriscos under Felipe III in 1609 reduced population in the surrounding valleys. Constant pirate raids drove townspeople two kilometres from the coast, where they enclosed themselves behind walls that stood until 1877. The historic centre that survives today — whitewashed houses with iron grilles and carved doorways in local golden tosca stone around the Gothic church of Sant Bartomeu — is the direct result of that defensive withdrawal.

Siding with the Bourbon cause in the War of Spanish Succession (1702–1713) earned Xàbia trading privileges at its port, which became the engine of local commerce, first through wheat imports and later through a thriving raisin export trade that by the nineteenth century was reaching markets in northern Europe and the Americas.

On the slopes of Mont Montgó facing south over the town, eleven windmills survive on a ridge known as La Plana. The oldest dates to an earlier century, the rest to the eighteenth. Each is a cylindrical stone structure roughly six metres in diameter and seven metres tall, originally topped with a conical roof carrying a set of sails that drove millstones through a horizontal axle.

The two floors divided storage below from the milling mechanism above, with a vaulted ceiling of tosca stone between them. They ground mainly wheat, driven by the local wind called the lebeche. After the town walls came down in 1873 the bakers moved closer to the expanding town and the mills fell out of use.

By 2024 the town council intended to restore the three mills it owns. Of the walled circuit itself — which enclosed around 4.38 hectares, later expanded to 6.61 — stretches of the so-called upper wall survive at sixty centimetres high, along with three sloped buttresses added in 1805. The defensive system also relied on coastal watchtowers that passed fire signals from tower to tower until the church bells sounded the alarm.

Two towers remain: the Torre de Ambolo, now on private land, and the Torre del Portitxol, beside the road down to Playa de la Barraca. A third element was the Castell de la Granadella, a small horseshoe-shaped fort built in 1739, which was destroyed by British troops during the Peninsular War; the remains of a rectangular cistern that served a three-man garrison still stand.

Valencia airport is 100 km north and Alicante airport 100 km south; both have car rental companies on site. A car is essential for getting around Xàbia, and if renting locally it is worth booking ahead, as agencies sell out in summer. The tourist office keeps an online list of local agencies renting cars, motorbikes, and bicycles.

Local food specialities include paella marinera, arròs a banda (rice cooked in fish stock with fish and potatoes), almond pastries, and raisins. Hotel Rodat has two restaurants on site.