A day in Polop: the town of the sleeping lion, where new builds are houses, not flats

8:00. Coffee by the fountain

The day in Polop begins at the Font dels Xorrets. Here 221 spouts run with clean water from the Terrer and Garroferal mountain springs, and from the square the narrow streets of the old town climb towards the castle hill.

About 5,800 people live in the town, which sits 262 metres up, above the valley. The sea is about ten kilometres away, the beaches of l'Albir and Benidorm a quarter of an hour by car, Alicante airport around an hour. Without a car life here is not easy, and it is worth knowing that from the start.

9:30. The castle and the writer's cemetery

A path zigzags up from the old town to the ruins of the 12th and 13th century Arab castle. In 1276 Christian troops took it, and in spring 2026 Polop and La Nucía marked 750 years since that event with a joint Moors and Christians festival. In May 2026 the castle reopened after a major restoration: the provincial council invested about 900,000 euros, laid wooden walkways and put up signs. Entry is free.

Inside the walls lies the old cemetery, used for burials until 1945. In 1921 the writer Gabriel Miró came to Polop, and this place inspired his chapter "The Garden of Crosses" in the book "Years and Leagues" (1928). In 2013 the town restored the cemetery as a literary space, with lines by Miró on the plaques. The writer's house museum is also in town.

11:00. The mountain behind you

Above the town rises Ponoig, about 1,180 metres of rock with sheer walls, and from the square it seems within arm's reach. This is the "sleeping lion", and together with neighbouring Puig Campana it is part of a protected mountain landscape. The climb to the top is serious; guidebooks recommend it to those who are fit and have hiked in the mountains before. For those who want more, a via ferrata runs up the rock, a route along the wall with steel cables and rungs: you reach it from a car park below Polop, through a dry riverbed. At the top everything is repaid by the view: mountains all around, the sea and Benidorm's skyscrapers lined up on the horizon.

If you just want a walk, there is a gentler way: the trail from Xirles to Xines, about 13 kilometres with 300 metres of climb, among pines and holm oaks.

And in the Gulabdar gorge (also spelt Gulapdar on maps) people hide from the heat. A short route, about 600 metres one way, starts at the CV-715 viaduct and follows the old irrigation channel to the Salt del Gall waterfall and an old mill. Shade, the sound of water and stone, all next to town. In my view, it is this mountain behind it that makes Polop what it is.

14:00. A village lunch

Polop is proud of its mountain cooking, hearty and simple. The main dishes are pilotes de dacsa, corn dumplings stewed with vegetables and pulses, and olleta de blat, a thick stew with wheat. Rice with beans and turnips is made too. In 2024 two researchers from the University of Alicante gathered the town's recipes in a study, "The cooking of the people of Polop", and won Benissa's 25 de Abril prize for it. Their list includes stuffed squid, blood with onion, espencat of roasted vegetables, pumpkin fritters, sweet potato pastries and several rice dishes: cooking from what grows nearby and in its season. Dessert comes with mistela, the sweet local wine.

The easiest place to try it is Ca l'Àngels: home cooking from local produce, some of it from their own garden, and homemade desserts. For a special evening there is neighbouring La Nucía and the Michelin-starred restaurant El Xato.

17:00. Sport and school

La Nucía begins a couple of kilometres from Polop, and its Camilo Cano sports city is five minutes away by car. It has more than eighty facilities on 250,000 square metres: a 2018 stadium with an eight-lane running track, which hosted the 2019 Spanish athletics championship, a heated 25-metre indoor pool, a children's pool, a spa with sauna and Turkish bath, David Ferrer's tennis academy, twelve padel courts and a climbing wall. For a child it means any sport to choose from, and after school they swim or play tennis where championships are held.

Polop itself has a state primary school, and next to it the town hall already has a plot for a future secondary school (more below, in "What to know"). The British Sierra Bernia School, teaching ages 3 to 18, is in neighbouring l'Alfàs del Pi.

20:00. Evening on the square

In the evening life returns to the old town: to the Font dels Xorrets and to the Plaza de la Purísima, where in the quiet streets you can hear water running. The liveliest evenings are in early October, when the patron saint's festival of Saint Francis lasts nine days. On 4 October the town is woken before dawn by the Aurora, songs in honour of the saint, all the bells ring, the penyes, groups of friends and neighbours, gather by the town hall and the pasodoble "Polop de la Marina" plays. Then come the humour parade, the crowning of the festival queens, Valencian pelota, the flower offering to the saint, the procession through the old town and, at night, the verbenas, open-air dances. In mid-August, from the 14th to the 17th, the town celebrates again at the Porrat festival. Anyone who wants a lively night on an ordinary day goes to Benidorm and comes back to the quiet to sleep.

What the notary deals show

The two key rows are these. By median metre Polop has almost caught up with Finestrat, and over the year prices here rose by 39.6%, faster than in any other town in the area that I follow. A new house in Polop sold on average for 3,721 euros a metre, more than new builds in Finestrat and l'Alfàs, and the average such purchase cost 469,624 euros for 126 metres.

New builds are not a rarity here, as they are in Altea or l'Alfàs: more than a quarter of all deals. But the wave of completions built a few years ago has passed. In the third quarter of 2024, 67 new-home deals were signed before a notary, and in the first quarter of 2026 only five. The notary date is the day the house is handed over, not the day of the decision to buy, so the figure says something else: earlier projects are sold and completed, and almost everything on sale now is still under construction.

Buyers here are more often foreign, above all Dutch (16.9%), Polish (13.7%) and German (10.5%), and the median buyer is 47, younger than in Finestrat and l'Alfàs. How to read notary prices I explain in the article on real sale prices on the coast.

Which new houses you can buy in Polop now

All five new projects in town are houses, not flats, and I have put them in one table.

Bay View stands on the slope between the mountains and the bay of Altea, and its most affordable villa has a garden larger than the entire area of many flats. Villa Elia II is a single-storey house with its own pool and a roof solarium; I wrote about it separately. WOW Views are two-level houses with a solarium. Eco Houses Polop are built of CLT timber rather than concrete and brick, and a timber house feels quite different. And Venecia V is for those who need a big house: four bedrooms, a ten-metre pool and a basement for a cinema or a gym; the keys are expected in the third or fourth quarter of 2027.

Who Polop suits

For those who want to live in a real Spanish town rather than a tourist quarter and are ready to drive to the sea. For families and couples who need their own plot and a pool in the yard rather than a complex's shared garden. For those who love mountains, trails and sport: Ponoig behind them, La Nucía's sports city next door. And for those buying a second home for the season who want real Spanish life around them all year.

What to know in advance

There is no secondary school in town: as of September 2025 more than three hundred older pupils travelled to neighbouring towns to study, and the town hall is pushing for its own school to be built.

The nearest public hospital, Hospital Marina Baixa, is in Villajoyosa, about 25 minutes by car; private clinics are in Benidorm.

And the price: Polop is no longer a cheap village; the figures are above, in the section on deals.

What it means for a buyer

Polop gives what the coast lacks: quiet, mountains and a detached house instead of a flat. Almost everything new here is still being built, so it is better to choose now, while five projects still give you a choice. If you are looking at Polop, I will show you these houses in person and compare them with the villas of La Nucía and Finestrat. Your price is the same as with the developer, and my commission is paid by the developer, not by you. Why you are better off with me than without me.