Platja de Llevant — Levante Beach — is the beating heart of Benidorm, a long crescent of golden sand curving beneath the city's famous wall of skyscrapers. It is the image most people picture when they think of the resort: sun loungers in neat rows, warm shallow water, and a skyline unlike anywhere else on the Spanish coast.
The promenade behind the sand runs the full length of the beach, lined with bars, restaurants, ice-cream stands and hotels, and it stays lively well into the night. Sunbeds and umbrellas are inexpensive and lifeguards patrol in season, which makes it an easy, family-friendly beach despite the crowds.
It is also a piece of history: in the 1950s this was a small fishing village, and Levante was at the centre of its transformation into one of Europe's best-known seaside resorts. A walk from end to end takes around half an hour and sums up modern Benidorm in a single stretch of sand.