The Benidorm Bulletin — Issue 79 | 27 September – 4 October 2026

From the Editor

For most of the year Benidorm is something that happens to visitors. From Thursday, for four days, it belongs to the people who live here, and they intend to parade through the middle of it in full costume with their own brass bands. If you are in town, you will not miss it. The only question is whether you get a good view or end up stuck behind it trying to reach a taxi.

Before any of that, a thank you. Last week I asked for a favour at the top of this newsletter, and you came up with it. More on that straight below, along with the one thing several of you said you could not work out: how to share your countdown. This week there is a picture showing exactly where to tap.

Then the lead, which is the practical version of Moros y Cristianos, and the bar picks follow the parades. There is also something new near the bottom: one Spanish phrase a week, the Spain kind rather than the app kind, starting with how people here actually order a beer. And Hot Topic asks a question I have not been able to answer myself.

Four Days, Two Armies, and Nobody Loses

Moros y Cristianos runs from Thursday 1 to Sunday 4 October. Here is what you will see, when, and how not to spend Saturday night looking at the back of somebody’s head.

One thing first. When this issue went to press, the council had not yet published the 2026 programme. The dates are the council’s own. The times below are the ones used in recent years, and the running order does not change much, but check the programme once it is out before you plan an evening round a particular hour.

Thursday: the Moors take the town. The Christian camp goes up in the afternoon, and at about eight in the evening the Moorish side arrives and claims Benidorm in the Parlamento de la Invasión. It is the quietest of the four days and the best one for working out what the rest is about.

Friday: the Diana, then the reply. The morning parade has in recent years left Calle Escuelas at half past ten and worked through Tomás Ortuño and the Paseo de la Carretera. It is smaller than the evening parades, far less crowded and much easier to photograph. Later the Christians answer with the Embajada, a formal exchange of speeches in Valencian and Spanish. You will not follow the words, and you do not need to.

Saturday: the Gran Entrada. This is the one. Both armies, full costume, their own bands, starting at eight in the evening in recent years. It often runs to three hours or more and it will not be hurried. The good kerbside places go early, and people who have done it before arrive with something to sit on.

Sunday: peace, flowers and fireworks. The two sides settle it in the Parlamento de Paz around midday, followed by the flower offering at the church of San Jaime and Santa Ana. In the evening the Retreta, a parade of floats, has recently come through Tomás Ortuño, Venus, Ruzafa, Martínez Alejos and Gambo into the Plaza de la Hispanidad, with fireworks after. Why Benidorm ends in peace rather than a victory is in Did You Know.

My advice, if three hours standing does not appeal: watch the first half hour of the Entrada from somewhere along Tomás Ortuño, then walk up into the Old Town. The bars up there fill with people coming off the route, half of them still in costume, and it is a better evening than the last hour of any parade.

Every day of it, with where to stand, is on our Moros y Cristianos page. Put it in your phone’s calendar from the fiestas page.

☀️ What’s On This Week

A neighbourhood fiesta winding down on Sunday, the markets, and then the biggest four days of the town’s own year.

For everything further ahead, go to the What’s On page. I update it as things are announced rather than writing it once and leaving it, so it is worth a look before you book and again the week before you fly.

And the markets. The big municipal market is Foietes, Wednesday morning, number 1 bus. Rincón de Loix runs Wednesday and Sunday, number 6. Both finish at half past one and both are better before ten. The Rastro at El Cisne is Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, nine till two. Every market for miles, with the buses, is on the market days page.

Coming Up: October does not let up. The Festes del Roser run from the 7th to the 11th and the Fira de Productes de la Terra from the 9th to the 11th. There are also two public holidays four days apart, Friday 9th and Monday 12th, which is next week’s lead. The whole fiesta year is on the festivals hub, and the dates are on the fiesta calendar.

🍺 Where to Wet Your Whistle

This week the picks follow the parades: one for each of the three days worth being out for, and each a few steps from the route. None has been in this newsletter before, and all three come from our own reviews.

Friday, before the Diana: Santagloria Coffee & Bakery. There are two in the Old Town, one on Calle Gambo and a newer one on Tomás Ortuño, which is on the Diana’s route. It is small, light and largely self-service, so order at the counter and take a table outside. The coffee is excellent, and the reason to pick it over any other café on the route is the small pastries: buy three or four and try them all. It also does more savoury things than most bakeries here. The full review is here.

Saturday, before the Entrada: Cervecería 100 Montaditos, Calle del Pal. You are about to stand still for three hours, so eat first, and eat quickly. A montadito is a small filled roll, and the clue to the rest is in the name. Order at the bar, it comes fast, it is cheap, and a group can feed itself without anybody waiting for a table. Somebody once called it the Spanish Wetherspoons. That is unfair to it, though only slightly. Our review.

Sunday, after the fireworks: La Creu Café, Plaça de la Creu, where Martínez Alejos meets the Old Town. The Retreta has come along Martínez Alejos in recent years, so you may already be standing next to it. It runs from breakfast to late, and at the end of a long night what you want is the pizza, thin-based from a proper oven. The kebab pizza puts two late-night staples on one plate, and I will not pretend it is anything other than what it sounds like. The full review is here.

🎭 Tonight’s Entertainment

For four nights this week the best show in town is free and in the street. But the parades end, and then you want somewhere to go. So this week: the Old Town rooms you can walk to off the route, and the ones that run the same line-up every week, so you know what you are getting.

All of it comes from every live-music venue in the Old Town, room by room and night by night, which nobody else has written down in English.

The Guinness Bar, Avenida Alcoy 5, publishes a standing line-up rather than a new one each week, which makes it the easiest room in town to plan round. Feedback play at nine every night of the fiesta, and on Friday and Saturday Liam follows at half past ten. If you are coming off the Entrada late on Saturday, that is your timing.

Vincents, in the Old Town, has karaoke from nine until three every night of the year, with live entertainment at weekends as well. It has been open since 1965, the first British pub in Benidorm, and it has seen more fiestas than most of the people marching in this one.

The Bodhrán, on Dr Orts Llorca, has live music every night and is run by a family from County Cork. After an evening of Spanish brass bands, an Irish bar is a sensible change of key.

Kaffe Klee, in the Old Town, is the drag cabaret: doors at eight, the show around ten, Tuesday to Sunday. It is free to get in, over-18s only, and groups are capped at ten. It is a small room, so on a fiesta weekend go early.

The strip venues had not filed their listings for this week when it went to press, which is why they are not here. That means nobody had typed them up yet, not that nothing is on. The chalkboard outside is always right.

☀️ Weather Watch — October

These are the state forecaster’s long-run averages for October at Alicante, not a forecast for this week, and the start of the month usually runs warmer than the end. The days are still warm, around seven hours of sun a day on average, and the nights are properly cooler than they were a month ago.

What to pack: summer clothes for the day and a real layer for the evening, because three hours sitting on a kerb after dark is colder than it sounds. October’s rain falls on only a handful of days, so when it does come it tends to come all at once. Something showerproof that folds into a pocket will do.

❓ You Asked…

Q: Is October too late for swimming in the sea?

No, and it is warmer than most people expect. The sea here averages around 22 or 23 degrees across October, somewhere between about 21 and 25 depending on the day, and the warmer end of that is usually the start of the month.

The water is slower to cool than the air, so in October it is often the warmest thing about an early morning. The catch is getting out, not getting in: once the sun drops behind the buildings, a wet towel on a breezy beach feels a long way from August. Swim in the middle of the day, and keep an eye on the flag. Our beaches page covers which is which.

🔥 Hot Topic

Would You Get on the Plane Without Him?

Earlier this month a man from Bolton on a lads’ holiday became separated from his friends in the early hours of a Sunday, after a night out. His phone was believed lost. On the Monday, his friends flew home without him. By the Thursday his wife and his mother had booked flights out and were appealing on Facebook for anybody who had seen him. Within a day his mother was posting that he was home, safe and sound.

So it ended well, and I am not going to name him or pick over what happened, because nobody has said, and it is none of our business. I am also not going to judge the friends. I do not know what they knew, what they had tried, or whose job was on the line if they missed that flight.

But it is a question worth asking yourself before you go rather than at the gate. If one of your group had not come back by the morning of the flight, would you get on the plane? Staying is easy to promise from a sofa at home. It is harder at the gate, with work on Tuesday and a ticket that cannot be changed.

What I am sure about is the phone. The whole thing turned on one lost handset, because that is where everybody keeps the hotel name, the mates’ numbers and the boarding pass. So put a piece of paper in your wallet with the name of your hotel and one number you know will answer. Agree a place to meet if anybody gets separated, and make it somewhere more precise than “the bar”. It takes two minutes and it looks daft right up until the night you need it.

Reply and tell me honestly: would you have stayed?

💡 Tip of the Week

Photographing the Parades Without Being That Person

Go on the Friday morning. The Diana is the smaller parade, in daylight, with room on the pavement, and you will come away with better pictures than anybody who spent Saturday night holding a phone over three rows of heads.

Stay on the kerb. Stepping into the route for a better angle holds up a band, and a comparsa in formation does not stop for you. For the same reason, do not wave anybody out of the line for a selfie, however good the costume.

And think before you post. A lot of the people marching are children in costume, with their faces in full view. A picture of the whole spectacle is lovely. A close-up of somebody else’s child on your public Facebook page is a different thing, and their parents did not agree to it.

🤔 Did You Know?

You would expect a mock battle between two armies to end with one of them beaten. Benidorm’s ends with a peace parliament. On the Sunday the two sides meet and settle it, and nobody loses.

When this year’s poster was unveiled in June, the town’s fiestas councillor, Jesús Carrobles, said that ending is what makes Benidorm’s celebration unique in the Valencian region and in Spain. I cannot check that against every town in the country, and Spain has a great many towns with a fiesta calendar, so treat it as the council’s claim rather than mine.

The poster itself was drawn by a young local artist, Quim López, and picked from 75 entries by school pupils aged twelve to eighteen. This year the Moorish king is Emilio Escudero of the Tuareg company, and the Christian king and queen are Alberto Sánchez and Silvia Gois of the Cruzados. So in a town that is mostly known abroad for its arguments over sunbeds, the biggest four days of the year end with both sides shaking hands. I find that rather encouraging.

Community Noticeboard

⭐ At Moros y Cristianos this week? Reply with a photograph off your phone, of the parade rather than of anybody’s children close up, and it may go on the Moros y Cristianos page. First-name credit, or none if you prefer.

⭐ Driving here? The low emission zone runs on number plates, hire cars included. Everything you need is on the low emission zone page.

⭐ Coming out with a wheelchair or a scooter? The accessible Benidorm page covers what works, what does not and what it costs. Tell me where I have got it wrong.

⭐ Missed an issue? Every back issue is on the site, free to read, no sign-in.

This week: a thank you, a picture showing where to tap, four days of fiesta, three places to eat along the route, a question about a flight home, and your first Spanish phrase. Next week there are two bank holidays four days apart, what shuts on them, and the Spanish phrase to ask whether somewhere will be open.

Thanks for reading. Pass it on to anyone with Benidorm on their mind.

Until next time — keep the sun on your face and the sangria cold. ☀️

— The Benidorm Bulletin Team