Spain - Costa Blanca - Ambolo

In September 2001 Rog posted this to the NEFF team.

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Ambolo beach, Costa Blanca, Spain.

22/08/2001

Location:
Ambolo is an officially designated naturist beach, situated a short drive away from the resort of Javea (Xabia). It is fairly easy to find but is only accessible by car. To find the beach drive south out of Javea and follow the signs for Cap de la Nau until you see the signs for Ambolo. Ignore the first turning for Ambolo but take the second one immediately after and keep to the right at the small island after the junction and follow the road for a mile or so until you reach the beach itself.

The beach: 
On arrival the only place to park is on the final stretch of road leading down to the beach. This road is very steep and parking can be a bit of a nightmare on busier days, also there is a danger from falling rocks from the slope above the lower part of the road, so take care. The semi man-made path that leads down to the beach can be a bit hazardous as some quite large portions of it have fallen away leaving long drops onto the rocks below. The final steps that lead down to the beach at the end of the path seem to finish in mid air with about 3 feet to go, which makes it difficult to get down if you are carrying anything.

Only the middle 1/3 of the beach is really usable, this is still quite stony so a padded beach mat is recommended. The rest of the beach is very rocky although there are a couple of larger rocks that are flat enough for sunbathing on. The beach slopes away quite quickly once in the sea and becomes quite deep a short way out which can make for some quite large waves, it seemed to be very popular with snorkelers though. There are no facilities of any description either on or near the beach so you will only have what you take with you.

Despite the location of the beach and its relative difficulty to get down to, it was still very popular. There was a mixture of Spanish locals and German and British tourists, mainly couples and single adults, I imagine the difficult path down to the beach would put anybody with smaller children off.

I made 3 visits there during the course of my holiday, the first time was fairly early in the day and the beach was a little quieter and used almost exclusively by naturists. The second and third visit were in the afternoon and the beach was a lot busier and only about 50-50 naturist but everybody seemed to get along quite harmoniously, most of the non naturists seemed to be single or small groups of women.

On the whole, not too much to recommend at Ambolo, I wouldn't advise anyone with younger children to attempt the climb down to it and lovers of sandy beaches will find it disappointing.

Rog.

In September 2005 Douglas reported ...

Access has been improved. There is now no problem with that "sudden three feet drop". A set of wooden stairs take you right down to the beach so access for small children should no longer be too much of a problem. He also commented that parking, etc., remains difficult but in other respects Rog's description of the beach and its quality is accurate.