Travelling from north to south, Vinaròs is the first city to greet visitors to the "Costa Azahar"; this town has undergone a big transformation in recent years, with new suburbs and totally residentialized streets, dotted with attractive Gothic and Baroque buildings. Vinarós has a modern bull ring, a commercial and fishing port, a wide, clean beach with full services and a rich gastronomy, of which the langoustine is the most traditional and esteemed shellfish speciality. Benicarló is a city of Arabic origin, with nearby preIberian settlements. It has a medieval urban nucleus with noteworthy houses on whose façades you can still see noble coats of arms. The town is connected to the sea by a long avenue and its fishing port is notable as well as the long, wide beach which stretches to the outstanding town of Peñiscola, the touristic "nerve centre" of this part of the "Costa Azahar".

Peñíscola is not only remarkable because of its situation on top of a rocky promontory surrounded by the sea and joined to the mainland by a sandy tongue of land, but also for its exceptional monuments, for being the scene of historical events and for the beauty of its beaches and its enormous cliffs.

The majestic castle of Peñíscola was built by the Templar Knights in the thirteenth century. It is a unique building, constructed in the austere style of Aragon and bare of adornment. This outstanding work was then extended by the Order of Montesa and by Pope Benedict XIII, better known as the "Papa Luna" [ Moon Pope ], who retired there after the schism from the West. Peñiscola has played a very important role in the most important events of Spanish history for many years. The town is nowadays the most visited tourist centre in the whole of the Valencian Community.

A little further south we reach Alcossebre, an eminently touristic resort of Arab origin, which was subsequently inhabited by fishermen. It is joined to Alcalà de Xivert, and has a modern marina, beaches and magnificent residential areas of villas and holiday apartments.

In Torreblanca we find the seaside resort of Torrenostra, with an excellent beach, campsites and restaurants surrounding a former fishing town which is now being continuously developed as a summer tourist resort. Between this town and Oropesa del Mar, occupying part of the municipal term of Cabanes, we can find the Natural Park "Parque Natural del Prat de Cabanes-Torreblanca", an important humid area that conserves valuable fauna species and flora. In Oropesa lie the fine sanded beaches of "La Concha" and "Morro de Gos". Beside them there is a modern leisure harbour, which is opening up excellent prospects for tourism in the town. Oropesa del Mar has also many beautiful unspoilt inlets surrounded by pines, with open views of the Mediterranean, among these the exceptional "playetas" zone.

Benicàssim, a town of Arabic origin, is the home of tourism on the "Costa Azahar". It is a town dedicated to tourism, not only because of its fantastic beaches but also because of its wild mountains, which are very close to the coast and form the exceptional "Desierto de las Palmas". The sea and the mountains are so close to each other that they even seem to merge at some points on the coast. With the spectacular development of villas and holiday apartments by the seaside, Benicássim has become one of the most important summer tourist resorts on the Spanish Mediterranean coast and visiting it is a must.

The beaches of Benicássim stretch out southwards in a continuous line and join those of Castellón de la Plana, the capital, thus forming an almost unprecedented offer, in Spain, of 14 kilometres of uninterrupted beaches of soft sand, which are wide, clean and provided with an important number of hotels, campsites, typical restaurants, golf courses, an aerodrome, tennis courts, a planetarium, discotheques, pubs and in the centre of these, the majestic "Parque del Pinar" [Pine Grove Park ], a natural spot only metres from the sea, and pride of the Castellón people for its uniqueness.

The Pinar beach ends in the "Grau", the maritime district of the Capital, very well known among tourists for its extraordinary wealth of restaurants, where one can sample the most typical dishes of the area, especially all kinds of rice dishes and freshly caught fish and shellfish, of which some varieties are unique in the world.

Castellón has one of the most modern and influential ports of the Mediterranean, the commercial and fishing harbours standing alongside the Nautical Club, where there are presently over three hundred sports craft, and where one can practise an important number of nautical activities, and thus water sports are especially popular amongst the young. Thirty nautical miles out of the sea from the Grao lies the archipelago of the "Islas Columbretes", four groups of islets of volcanic origin which to visitors´eyes look like boats stranded in the sea. The biggest, "L´illa Grossa", covers an area of 14 hectares. The islands are of incomparable beauty and form a protected Natural Park.

On the "Costa Azahar" we guarantee almost three hundred days of sunshine a year and an average temperature of 18ºC, which make it a magnificent area to be enjoyed all year round. The climate is therefore a Mediterranean one of long, dry, hot summers and mild winters, in which to stay and enjoy the extraordinary attractions which this Spanish province has to offer to the visitor.

The province of Castellón is also the second most mountainous in Spain, and thus within very few kilometres, the clean beaches of the coast blend in with an aggressive mountain-scape inland which gradually declines as it nears the coast.

The tourist coastline of Castellón is very well connected. The A7 motorway crosses it from north to south, with wide roads giving access to the different towns, and we also have a complete railway service, and even a maritime and air service, due to the short distance from Valencia, capital of the Community. Soon "Costa Azahar" will have an airport that will facilitate, even more, the access to our lands.