This was our favourite of all the places we visited on our week in Alicante – a stunning set of waterfalls in the mountains about an hour’s drive from Alicante centre.
We were actually staying in El Campello, about half-an-hour north of Alicante itself, so the drive from El Campello to Fonts de l’Algar was only about 40-minutes. If you’re staying in Benidorm, getting to Fonts de l’Algar is even easier and takes less than half an hour.
Fonts de l’Algar is a range of beautiful small and large waterfalls, interspersed with clear pools that are ideal for swimming, paddling or jumping into.
Although a wild and natural place on a mountain hillside, it’s been developed to be easily accessible with pathways up alongside the waterfalls, steps, seating areas and well-defined swimming areas.
You do however have to pay to enter – but it wasn’t much and was definitely well worth the cost.
Following our Google Maps satnav, we arrived at the foot of a steep, narrow road with multiple signs for car parks for the waterfalls.
Car park attendants tried to wave us into the car parks, but it turned out that these car parks are actually private land or car parks for restaurants, which they appeared to want you to park in, in exchange for eating in their restaurants.
We’d bought our own lunch and didn’t want a restaurant car park, and it took us a bit of time to figure out which car park was the legitimate public car park, compared with which were restaurant car parks trying to lure you in for your custom in their restaurant.
It turns out the very first car park you arrive at is the public one (furthest from the falls themselves), so the longest walk up the hill to actually get there – but not too far (only about a 5-minute walk or so).
If you are planning on staying for lunch or dinner at a restaurant, there’s lots of choice and plenty of places to park if so.
Once you’re in, you see the tallest waterfall, which is the one where the famous Timotei shampoo advert was filmed.
There are big boulders you can sit on around deep, crystal clear pools that you can easily get into and swim.
A staircase takes you up past more waterfalls and pools, including a big, very deep pool with a high rock-face edge perfect for the more daring to leap off into the water.
Further up is a large waterfall with a big, calm pool that’s very easily accessible and fine for smaller children to take their shoes off and paddle in, but which opens out and gets deep enough to have a proper swim, right up to and underneath the waterfall itself.
All around these beautiful pools and waterfalls are large stone and rock areas that you can sit on or lay out in the sun.
Continue walking up-stream and you find more areas with little stone beaches by the river, benches to sit in the shade and more places to swim.
The whole place is seriously beautiful and peaceful and we stayed for hours just messing around in the water and laying in the sun.
The only slight reservation we have is what it’s like in peak summer season.
We were here in April. It was a very warm sunny day and at times it got a bit busy.
Certainly not too busy – and people came and went, sometimes leaving us totally by ourselves, but sometimes a crowd of people arrived and there was a lot of jostling for places to sit and swim, before they seemed to move on again and things would calm down.
Maybe in the height of summer holidays, given the limited space, it might be more difficult to relax and swim, if coach-loads of visitors arrive frequently.
To be honest, the place was so stunning it’s still worth visiting even if that is the case, but just something to be aware of that it might not be as quiet and empty as our photos suggest if you’re here in peak season.
Whatever though, it’s a great place to visit and our favourite destination on our holiday here.
We combined our trip to Fonts de l’Algar with a visit to the nearby mountain village of Guadalest, and then a visit on the way home to the town of Altea – both of which were also great destinations and well worth visiting at the same time if you’re in the region visiting the waterfalls.
Useful info
Google Maps link to the public car park close to the entrance of Fonts de l’Algar: https://goo.gl/maps/KB6oMk8N6e4omLx5A