Forat de Bernia Hike | Comunidad Valenciana

By Roberto – (Updated Feb 2023)

⏱ 3 min

Welcome to another hiking post in Comunidad Valenciana. 😄 After doing a great hike along the Mediterranean coast, in Moraira, we decided to do a rocky one. We opted for doing the famous Forat de Bernia hike, in Alicante.

About Forat de Bernia hike

El Forat de Bernia is a cave forged in the mountain, that offers you marvelous views of Marina Baixa, around Altea. The hike includes a tunnel, different terrains, and unique views, being a good plan for families or forged explorers. It’s a wonderful plan for an active day. Photo tip: skip the weekends!

• Location: Sierra de Bérnia (close to Altea)
• Distance: 8,4 km loop
• Duration: 2.5 – 3.5 h
• Elevation gain: 650 m
• Difficulty: Medium 
• How to go: From Valencia, drive through AP-7 to Benissa, to head Fuente de Bernia, the starting point. 
• Map of the hike from Alltrails:

Starting Forat de Bernia hike

Once you’re in Fuente de Bernia, you can do the circular route in two ways: going first to El Forat, or going first to El Fort. My recommendation is to go left, and go first to El Forat. This way, you will face a shorter but intense 1-hour hike, until you reach El Forat. Later, you will have 2-hours hike going down, in easy mode. 

The hike – if you go left as we did – first follows a paved road, that slowly changes to more difficult terrain. We like starting with this kind of walk because it serves as a warm up.

After some meters, the road changes to gravel and then rocky but remains quite flat, and the closer you are to the mountains, the harder it gets.

We strongly recommend to bring hiking shoes, there are rocks and mud that may be slippery for regular trainers. 

Going up!

The route continues up and up, following a narrow path and honestly, we had no idea about where we going. I read beforehand that one tight tunnel crosses the mountain at some point to get El Forat, but we couldn’t see anything. 

After living more than 30 years in Comunidad Valenciana, and I have to admit that I was impressed with the panoramic views. We don’t have high mountains here, and this was the closest thing to “mountain views” I’ve had around Valencia.

After climbing some technical meters, and getting a bit lost, we arrived to a flat that seemed to head the tunnel. And…

Yes! It appeared in front of us. The tunnel can be around 10 meters long, it’s narrow, quite narrow. Unless you’re a dwarf, you will pass crouched down, and protecting your head. I messed up my pants and went with one hand in the mud. If you’re afraid of confined spaces, don’t worry. You’ll see always light and nobody gets trapped in here. 

El Forat de Bernia and its views

Once you cross the tunnel, you’ll get similar views to this – sadly, with other people – and congratulations! You did the hardest part and now you’re in one of the best lookouts of Comunidad Valenciana. 

We had lunch here, while enjoying the views and the fresh air – cold according to Ellen. After the break, we continued the longer but easier second part of the hike.

The way back

This part is long – not as long as the infinite Ruta del Cares – but its distance is basically double the previous part, but it is mostly all down hill. The sun was up and we appreciated walking back this way. In the first stage, the mountains covered all the light.  

There were, nevertheless, some difficult parts, like this hill made from rocks. 

After approximately 50 mins, we reached the Fort, a construction dated from 1562. Philip II ordered to build this fort to defend the coastlines. Years later, the fort was abandoned after his delivered destruction.

From the Fort, we walked the rest of the kilometers to the starting point, and we finished our hike where everything started. 

Further reading… or hiking!

If you want to hike with us or share your favorite places, let us know! Also, if you want to check more of our hiking content, check out these posts: