The Cabo Roig promenade is two hundred meters from my townhouse. When I step onto it, I am twenty-five meters above the sea. I can hear the rhythmic “shhh… shhh…” of the water below. I hear the gulls cry and stop to look up. Three of them hang above the cliff edge without moving their wings. One drops, tips sideways, catches the rising air, and climbs again. I watch it and feel the tension in the back of my neck.

I go a few meters across the promenade to a staircase made of timber sleepers that leads down to the sea, with shrubs and plants on both sides clinging to the yellow-red earth. There is a pine tree to my left, and I am immediately met with its resin and citrus fragrance. It is a fresh, cool forest scent that finds its way high up in my nostrils. Below is a conservation area: rocky shore and small inlets cut by the water. To the left, I can see the larger cove, a crescent of gravel where a few people sometimes settle. To the right, the cliffs fold inward. But I know what is there: a small lagoon, tucked out of sight, with round stones so smooth you need swimming shoes or your feet slide out from under you. That one is mine.

But today I’m not swimming. I turn left and start walking. I usually start too fast, as if I have somewhere to go. The paving under my feet is pale and warm.

After a while the promenade slopes down. On the left are stone walls, maybe seven meters high. They belong to the rich. I can’t see the houses from here, but I know them: large mansions with wide windows facing the sea.

To the right, the beach opens up, maybe fifteen meters down. The sand is white, and from the café below, the smell of newly made French fries sometimes rises all the way to the path. I often stop there and look down and count without really counting — how many people are lying on the sand sunbathing, how many are in the water, how far out the most daring venture.

The walkway narrows. It follows the cliff edge, with no straight lines. The path is cut into reddish-brown limestone. Someone has bolted a wooden railing along the seaward side. I follow it down. My breathing slows on its own.

The sea comes closer, and I feel the cold air on my skin. The water is turquoise over sand, dark where the rocks are, then blue all the way out. Below me the coastline breaks apart into rocky outcrops, small coves, and strips of sand where white foam folds over dark stone. I am now five meters above the sea.

The light is strong. I’m squinting, but I don’t want to look away. The sea is doing too many things at once: shifting color, catching the sun in gamboling mirrors, pulling my gaze to where the water ends and the sky starts.

Sometimes a person passes by. We nod, or don’t, and continue in opposite directions. Most of the time, I am alone.

The farther I go, the slower my steps become.

There is a place where the houses and buildings disappear from view. Just cliffs, water, and sky. This is where I always stop.

I put both hands on the railing and look down. A deep, resonant thud as the water hits the stone walls below, then a whoosh that fills the space between impacts. A larger swell finds a hollowed-out rock somewhere beneath me and makes a muffled boom. Then the retreat. Water pulling back over rock and sand, leaving behind a gentle, crackling hiss — thousands of tiny bubbles giving up at once.

The scent is sharp with salt and iodine. The cliff beside me is dry earth and low scrub: wild rosemary, coastal shrubs baking in the spring sun. The smell shifts every few steps, depending on the breeze.

In summer, it becomes too hot to walk here except in the early morning. But now, in spring, the heat is gentle. It is around noon, so my shadow is short on the pale stone.

I’m four kilometers into my walk. If I continue for two more, I will reach Zenia beach. Wide, flat, busy. Nothing like the coves behind me. It is time to head back.

I still remember the first time I saw this promenade. I had come to look at a townhouse, but I bought a promenade. The house was just an add-on.

The promenade doesn’t demand thoughts. It only asks me to walk, look, and breathe.