Sun Sea News 14 Sept: Schools Back, Storms, Turtles & Local Round-Up
Costa Blanca North this week: first school run in the rain, record September heat then orange-alert storms, Dénia fire and turtle hatchlings, Polop blaze, Calpe fiestas and what’s on from Alicante to Dénia.
Monday 14 September 2026
Morning Terrace crew,
The uniforms are back, the lunchboxes are packed, and the coast has that familiar September change, a little quieter on the beaches, a little busier at the school gates. Infant, Primary, ESO, Bachillerato and most vocational courses in the Comunitat Valenciana went back on Wednesday 9 September. In Dénia alone, around 5,700 pupils started the year, and the first day was held, even with a storm warning hanging over the afternoon.
The weather has been doing its usual late-summer trick of refusing to pick a lane. Early last week it was still far too hot for September. Yellow heat alerts sat over the coast on Monday and Tuesday. Dénia hit 33°C at two in the morning. Pego touched 40.5°C. Several Marina Alta towns logged their highest September readings on record. Then Wednesday arrived, and the whole picture flipped. AEMET put an orange warning on the northern Alicante coast for storms, large hail, torrential rain and strong wind, and the temperature dropped six to ten degrees in a day. Pego took close to 100 litres. The first school run of the year was a wet one. Since then the sun has come back. This morning looks clear and still warm, highs around 28–31°C along the coast, nights in the low twenties. That is milder than last week’s furnace, but still above a normal mid-September.
Enjoy it while it lasts; midweek looks a little more mixed again. Don’t forget to subscribe to our Facebook group SunSeaSangria for daily weather updates.
Alicante and the southern stretch of the north coast
The province had a messy Monday on the roads: several accidents on the A-70 through Alicante and a three-kilometre tailback on the AP-7 at La Vila Joiosa heading towards the city. Works and single-lane stretches also cropped up on the N-332 around Dénia, Teulada and Benidorm. If you are still doing the school run on those roads, leave a bit earlier than you think you need.
El Campello has a kinder story lined up: a charity water-park day this month to help a local rescue group, and a craft session where you can make a leather glasses case with rescue puppies underfoot. That is very El Campello.
Villajoyosa is gearing up for one of its oldest traditional festivals later in September, the sort of week when the old town smells of gunpowder, and the seafront fills with people who have lived here all their lives.
Benidorm, La Nucia and Polop
Benidorm had a few anxious hours when a British visitor, Paul Cartwright, missed his flight home after a lads’ holiday. Family and friends raised the alarm; he was later found safe. On a brighter note, the city’s charity race for childhood cancer support is back on Sunday 20 September along that famous shoreline. Put it in the diary if you like a Sunday morning with purpose.
La Nucia is bringing Oktoberfest back; put it in your diary: the 38th edition, eleven days, free entry, German food and live music. If you have been missing brass bands and pretzels, that is your autumn outing.
Inland, Polop had a proper scare on Tuesday. A fire in the Bacorero area burned about 36 hectares on difficult ground. Around twenty residents were moved out as a precaution and later allowed home. Roads towards Guadalest and Xirles were closed for a time. Ten aircraft and a large ground team eventually got it under control; it was declared extinguished on Thursday. No injuries. Still, it was another reminder that the hills stay dry long after the tourists pack up.
Altea, Calpe, Benissa and Teulada
Calpe’s Moors and Christians have been given Festival of National Tourist Interest status by the Spanish tourism ministry, a lovely national nod in the festival’s 50th year. The Desembarco on Arenal-Bol and El Miracle, the 1744 pirate raid played out in the streets, are the heart of it. The Mercè festivities also run from 13 to 24 September. If you have never stood on that beach and watched the boats come in, this is the year.
Benissa’s parks got a student green-up last week, and the town is also asking for hands for a coastal and underwater clean-up. Altea kept the festive music going at the Palau. Firefighters also lifted two women to safety on Sunday 7 September, one with low blood sugar on the Montgó above Xàbia, another feeling unwell on the cliffs above Cala Moraig in Teulada. Both walked away from it.
Jávea and Dénia
Jávea has a rowing day this month for breast cancer survivors, and the long-planned makeover of Montaner Park, new play areas and better access, is still moving forward.
Dénia had a week that felt like three weeks. On Saturday 5 September, a vegetation fire next to IES Maria Ibars sent up a black column of smoke you could see from half the town. About 230 people were evacuated. Local police later arrested a man in swimming trunks in the Tamarindos dunes at Raset beach; he was carrying three lighters. He has since been released on provisional liberty while the investigation continues, including whether other recent fires around the urban edge are linked. Then, midweek, a phone left charging on a mattress started a flat fire on Avenida Ramón Ortega, and a five-storey building had to be cleared. A small thing, a huge mess. Don’t charge phones on the bed. I know we all do it. Stop.
The same stormy night that soaked the first day of school gave Dénia something gentler. At about four in the morning on Thursday, 74 loggerhead hatchlings came out of Mona’s second nest on Les Bovetes after almost forty days of watching. Rain, a high tide and rough water, and they still made it to the sea. Eucrante, the town hall, El Portet and the University of Valencia marine team were on the sand. A few eggs were still to hatch, so the camp stayed put. Four nests this summer. That is no longer a novelty here; it is becoming part of who this coast is.
Hospital de Dénia has opened an acute pain unit for patients after major surgery, using nerve-block techniques for the hard recoveries. The Generalitat also said its cage programme has taken almost 500 wild boar in the Marina Alta as part of a wider Valencian drive. And the tourism numbers keep shifting: almost nine in ten regulated tourist beds in Dénia are now in holiday homes, not hotels. The town has grown its official capacity by about 65 per cent in a decade, and nearly all of that growth is apartments. That is the conversation in every bar from the port to Las Marinas.
Practical good news for anyone on the TRAM through Calpe, Teulada, Benissa and Gata: FGV is putting more than €6.8 million into the line, so you will soon pay by bank card or phone QR, with better access for reduced mobility. About time; it’s been a nightmare paying for your ticket when the machine is broken and the ticket inspector is on board. Six Marina Alta associations are also sharing €300,000 in new regional funding.
Coming up in Dénia: a blood donation marathon on 23 September at the Centro Social, and JoaFest on the 26th at the Casal Jove, free alternative leisure, morning and afternoon, made by and for younger people.
The week in a nutshell
Schools are back. The heat broke on Wednesday, and then the sun returned. The hills burned in Polop and a vacant lot burned in Dénia. Seventy-four tiny turtles chose the worst night of the week to be born, and still found the water. That is September on this stretch of coast: a bit of chaos, a bit of grace, and the sea still warm enough for a late swim.
Have a good Monday. Keep an eye on the sky from Wednesday, charge the phone on a table, and if you are heading into Montgó this week, take more water than you think you need, plus essentials; you never know.
Joanne xx
Mondays Sun Sea News — Costa Blanca North
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