There was a time when traveling to the beach was not a frivolity, but almost a medical prescription. At the end of the nineteenth century, the ‘wave baths’ became fashionable across Europe, and Valencia soon joined the phenomenon. On the Las Arenas beach, then a vast sandy expanse still to be tamed, began to rise a maritime spa that soon attracted the bourgeoisie, writers, politicians and families who arrived by tram, seeking sun, saline air, and a certain summer social life.
The building—with its open galleries, its symmetrical pavilions, and that modernist aesthetic that looked toward the Mediterranean without hesitation—became a recurring image of a city that was beginning to expand toward the sea.
What is surprising is that that spirit, the seaside spa as a meeting place and retreat in front of the waves, did not disappear completely when the complex fell into decline. Although the original building suffered decades of abandonment, its memory remained very much present in Valencia. Anyone older in the city has an anecdote: snacks on the sand, impromptu concerts, summer dances. That is why its rebirth as a five-star hotel and one of the best in Valencia was not merely an urban development project, but an emotional milestone for the city.
