Centro de Alicante inglés

STOP 1. The Postiguet beach.

The Postiguet beach is one of the most well-known places of Alicante and appears in almost every postcard of the city. It is located facing Santa Barbara castle and next to the Port of Alicante. Because of this, it offers a large number of services and opportunities to have fun.

It is an urban beach that can proudly show its blue flag every year. It has an extension of 900 metres long by 50 metres wide. Dogs are not allowed to swim, neither is nudism.

It offers multiple services such as public toilets or footbaths. It also has lifeguards and first aids equipment. In summer, people with reduced mobility can access special services. It is also possible to rent sun beds and beach umbrellas. It even has exercise equipment on the beach as well as playground areas. There are also lots of establishments that offer drinks to the swimmer.

The Postiguet beach had seaside resorts between 1860 and 1880. The first ones were called Los Baños de Simó. The most famous were Diana, Alhambra, La Estrella, La Esperanza and La Rosa. These resorts could be removable or permanent.

In the Postiguet beach several events take place, such as the Bonfires of Saint John, where groups of people lit bonfires and sit around them to have a good time. After the week of the Bonfires, the most important festivity in Alicante, The International Fireworks contest in the Cocó beach, which is located at the end of the Postiguet beach, takes place. Masters in pyrotechnics delight the audience with the spectacle, starting at 12 o’clock and lasting approximately15 min.

STOP 2. Access to the castle of Santa Bárbara.

The castle of Santa Barbara is located over the Mount Benacantil, a hill which measures 166 meters high, bordering the sea. This is the reason why it had an important strategic value, because from the top one can see the entire bay of Alicante and its surroundings.

Perhaps, this is the reason why it was chosen by every culture who inhabited these lands to use it as a settlement. Except for the archeological rests from the most ancient civilization (prehistoric, iberic, roman, and late roman), the first news found about the existence of a castle on the top of the hill are from the Islamic period. However, the first description we have of the castle is from the X century, by the geographer Al-Razi. In the same way, the first war event we know took place during the period of the Islamic occupation. Al-Sayj Al-Aslami, governor of Callosa, revolted there in 917, as a protest against the contributions imposed by the future caliph Abd Al-Rhaman III. After a long siege, the castle was finally reduced.

In the lower part of the medieval castle, where the Citadel and the Albacar (called “d’en mig”) were, due to the topography of Mount Benacantil, a new area was opened, separated from the old one by a moat: the Alcabar Vell. This Albacar was protected by, at least, one line of wall in the western part, flanked by turrets. The wall ended in the War Tower, which has not been preserved, and it was named in the XIII century, when Jaime II conquered the castle to the Castilians. The Albacar Vell door was located in that tower and, besides, this tower opened a new walled front to the north, where there were the Canyar Tower and Santa Ana Tower. Unfortunately, it is not conserved nowadays.

The castle of Santa Barbara is divided into three well-differentiated areas: -The first one is the tallest and it is known as “La Torreta”, due to the Tower of Tribute, located there. It has the oldest vestiges of the whole fortress, from the XI and XIII centuries. In this area we can see, among others, the so-called Bulwark of the English, as well as other spaces: the Engineers' Park, the Noble Hall, which was a hospital, the Governor's House, etc.

-The highest esplanade is known as “Macho del Castillo”, in which the old citadel was.

-The intermediate area corresponds to the most important spaces concluded in 1580: Felipe II Hall, former Cuerpo de la Tropa in front of the Weapons Court behind which are the ruins of Santa Barbara’s hermitage, Guard Corps, Bastion of the Queen, etc.

The access to the castle is through an elevator in front of the Postiguet beach, walking, by tourist bus or by car through a conventional road on the north side of the Mount Benacantil and starting at Vázquez de Mella street.

As a curiosity, from the Postiguet beach you can see in the mountain of the castle the shape of the profile of a face, called “La Cara del Moro” (The Muslim’s face). This is one of the most characteristic images of the city. Legend has it that the Caliph of Alicante wanted to marry his beautiful daughter Cántara with one of the two young Muslims who were in love with her. To choose one of them, the Caliph made the decision that each other should do a specific task, and Ala would decide. Almanzor had to go to the Indies to bring rare spice to her love. The other one, Ali, had to dig a ditch to bring to her love green water of Tibi to Alicante. Almanzor put much effort into his work, while Ali wrote poems to Cántara, so she fell in love with Ali. When Almanzor came back from his adventure, the Caliph granted him the hand of his daughter. Ali, hopeless killed himself by throwing off a cliff. Cántara did the same. The Caliph died of

sadness, and surprisingly his face appeared engraved on Mount Benacantil. The court, impressed, decided to call the city “AlicĂĄntaraâ€? from which the current name Alicante comes.

STOP 3. Sangueta and Balcón de Alicante.

Mount Benacantil is a rocky elevation adjacent to the sea. It is approximately 160 metres high and it played a key role in the construction of Santa Bárbara Castle and consequently with the development of the Spanish city of Alicante. On its hillsides we can find Ereta Park, and the districts of Santa Cruz, San Roque, San Antón and Raval Roig. Underneath we have the tram tunnel of Alicante. When it comes to the fauna of Mount Benacantil, there is a great variety of birds: blackbirds, serins, robins ... and a great range of insects. Barilla such as saltwort predominate in the flora. These were cultivated for their use and they contributed to the economic development of the city of Alicante.

Next to the district of Santa Cruz, we find the wonderful Ereta Park. It takes up almost seven hectares where, surrounded by nature, you walk down winding roads while enjoying fantastic viewpoints, cafeterias, fountains and even a panoramic restaurant. If you come to Ereta Park, you must be unhurried, well-shod, and wanting to get away from the city and breathe fresh air. To get to Ereta Park, you go through the picturesque district of Santa Cruz, from which you can access the area via stairs. From here, the roads fork to tour the remains of the wall, the Polvorín, Jardín del Ángel and Mirador Colina Alta.

The Raval Roig is placed next to the Postiguet beach on the foothills of Mount Benacantil, and it is home of Santa Bárbara Castle. It was a sailors’ district after the expulsion of the Moorish in 1609 and it´s placed outside the city walls. With the arrival of the tourism in the 70´s, the small houses of the 19 century were no longer usual and bigger ones started to be built. The current sailors’ traditions only take place on patron saint´s day dedicated to “Virgen del Socorro”. This holiday is the most ancient one of the city. The district has a square called “Balcón de Alicante” where you can see the Postiguet beach.

STOP 4. La Puerta del Mar (Door to the sea).

La Puerta del Mar is a central square in Alicante formed by two large landscaped islands. Its name comes from an old building constructed in 1544 by the Duke of Calabria. La Puerta del Mar was located in line with the missing street of Cervantes and it was very important for the supply of the walled city. Customs were located near La Puerta del Mar or in its opening itself, and it was used to manage taxes and control the merchandise and the passage of goods that entered or left the city through the port.

La Puerta del Mar had guard posts and some drawbridge because there was a moat at the front of the wall. La Puerta del Mar was guarded by two cylindrical towers commended to our Virgen de Montserrat (our Lady of Montserrat). That’s why it is also known as La Puerta de Montserrat. In 1535 the construction of the wall in front of the sea began with both, Saint Bartholomew and Saint Sebastian towers. The author of the construction was Joan Cervelló, a military engineer. At this time, Saint Francis tower had to be built and, nine years later, the dock gate and its two towers would be opened.

The construction finished with a crenellation on top, similar to the Torre de la Illeta in Campello. Alicante was walled to protect itself from pirate attacks. This access allowed to enter the city from the fishing dock. La Puerta del Mar is currently located between la Explanada and el Postiguet, halfway between the town hall, the port and the Postiguet beach. In 1810, the gradual dismantle of the walls of the Rambla started. Its debris would fill in the moats. In the second half of the nineteenth century, all this defensive construction was finished because it meant a limitation on the need for growth of the city. However, the name of this space remains to this day.

The current La Puerta del Mar in Alicante has a sailing boat that promotes the Volvo Ocean Race, a yacht race around the world, that has its departure in Alicante every four years. There is also a Spanish Flag in La Puerta del Mar. It is held by a high metal flagpole, and it represents Spain. Next to La Puerta del Mar, we find the Chamber of Commerce of Alicante. The square also has a fountain and a sculpture destined to pay tribute to the three armies of Spain.

STOP 5. Alicante's Port's sculptures

If we go for a walk at the at the Levante´s pier of Alicante´s port, we can see the bust of the Welsh Captain Archibald Dickson. It was unveiled the 8th April 2018 because of the 75th anniversary of the Stanbrook ship’s departure. This allowed hundreds of people to leave Alicante when the Spanish Civil War was about to end in 1939. This work was made by the sculptor Luis Gámez.

With Franco’s victory, the Spanish Civil War ended. Republicans looked for taking up exile to avoid Francoist reprisals. Alicante was the last Republican city of Spain, so Republicans from all over the country tried to come to Alicante to escape. The Stanbrook was a British coal ship which was at the port for loading oranges and saffron.

When the Captain Dickson saw the refugees at the port, with the hope of beginning a new life, he disobeyed the ship’s owner and he admitted everyone who could fit on the deck. At the end of the Spanish Civil War, the 28th March 1939 by nightfall, the Stanbrook left Alicante to Oran, Algeria. About 2,600 Republicans could escape from Francoist reprisals. At Alicante´s port, we can see another sculpture located a few metres from Tomás y Valiente stairs. At the Queen´s pier (Muelle de la Reina), to be exact. It was made in honour of the Greek Icarus. The sculpture measures 2,35 metres high and 1,20 metres wide. It is made of melt bronze (except for the surfboard, which is made of aluminium) and it is waxed to avoid sea water corrosion. The author of the sculpture is Esperanza d´Ors and it was unveiled in 1999.

The author had the idea based on the Greek myth of Icarus. According to her, the sculpture “is a tribute to all those who try to fly and dream”. However, she wanted to adapt the myth to nowadays. So, the sculpture has a surfboard instead of wings.

STOP 6. The fishmarket of Alicante.

The building of the fishmarket of Alicante is located at the Almirante Julio Guillén Tato rode, on the seafront of the city next to the Canalejas walk. Today it is not used for selling fish, but as an exhibition hall. In 1917 the Junta de Obras del Puerto de Alicante decided to build a new building only for the sale of fish by fishermen, something that used to took place on the docks of the port as well as in the old market of la Puerta del Mar. In that moment, the market was ruined and the new Central Market was still at the design stage, so Alicante didn’t have an specific building for the sale of fish.

The architect Próspero Lafarga was commissioned to carry out the project. Lafarga was known for his taste in classical and North African Arabic art. He combined his style with a structure of closed and open spaces designed specifically for the sale and the ventilation of fish.

This building was inaugurated in 1921 but in the mid 20th century the Junta del Puerto built a wider building that got into the docks, and this one replaced the first fishmarket which increasingly became more distressed. It was first remodelled in 1981 .In 1992 the Junta del Puerto decided to cede its property to the town council, which decided to turn it into a building for exhibitions and cultural activities. For a few decades the habit of buying fish directly from the fishermen had decreased considerably, reason why the new building was also abandoned. Currently, the port has a new place where fishmarket activities are carried out, in the new fishing dock, next to the dry dock of Alicante. The fishmarket building has three rooms and consists of a longitudinal nave with several columns that separate some interior courtyards. On the outside, it has a structure of 12 canted arches, which are reminiscent of the Maghrebi architecture. As an artistic space, it has hosted numerous exhibitions of painting, fashion shows and activities as the award ceremony of the Premio Azorín.

STOP 7. Casa Alberola.

La casa Alberola is a building located in the avenue Ramon y Cajal of Alicante, in front of Canalejas Park and on the seafront. According to the documentation, the owner was Juan Alberola Romero, who commissioned local architect José Guardiola Picó to design the building.

If we consider its formal features, the overall conception of the building seems to be planned on the basis of a neoclassical style by choosing ornamental motifs such as mouldings, pediments and pilasters which, although treated with a formal freedom that even brings them closer to eclecticism, give the building a purely bourgeois character. A cylindrical tower with a dome covered with glazed ceramic scales and neo-Arabic style windows stand out in the structure. However, it should be borne in mind that these neoArabic style windows do not appear in the initial plans as such, where they were characterised by a more eclectic style in keeping with the rest of the building. The emblematic building Casa Alberola will be a luxury hotel. The project, that was presented last year in the town planning department of the city council of Alicante, will be named Hotel Casa Alberola.

CANALEJAS PARK Canalejas Park runs parallel to the Marina Deportiva and gives continuity to the famous Explanada de España. It owes its name to the memory of José Canalejas, president of the Council of Ministers of the Government of Spain between 1910 and 1912. It is the oldest park in the city and its physiognomy has changed little. After urbanizing the area in which it is located, the park was called after a distinguished politician of that time, José Canalejas, who was named the protector of Alicante.

Inside the park there are huge, long-lived ficus. The monument of Canalejas and several fountains are also located there, in addition to a sculpture of two lions donated by Manuel Pritz, the monument of Carlos Arniches and a map of Spain in stone.

STOP 8. City Hall and nearby squares.

SANTA FAZ SQUARE: The Santísima Faz square is one of the most picturesque and bustling from the Alicante old town. Located behind the town hall, it’s one of the entrance doors to the old neighbourhood and it can be reached walking from Mayor Street or from the side arches of town hall. Definitely, the Santísima Faz square is perfectly located to make a stop during a visit to the Alicante old town, to eat something delicious in one of its restaurants or to visit the craft market that is celebrated on Fridays and Sundays.

SAN NICOLÁS CATHEDRAL: The St. Nicolás de Bari cathedral is part of the Orihuela-Alicante diocese together with Orihuela Cathedral. It is located in the Abad Penalva square. It was built on the remains of a mosque in a Renaissance style and its outward appearance is simple. The building was made between 1916-1662, although its cloister is older, since it dates from de 15th century. It was originally made in a Gothic style. It was named procathedral in 1959, and since then it is part of the OrihuelaAlicante diocese together with the Santa Iglesia Catedral del Salvador of Orihuela. The Cathedral has also an ante-vestry, a vestry, a chapter house and a quadrangular one floor cloister. It was in the18th century when the communion chapel was built in a Greek cross shaped floor very decorated in contrast with the rest of the set.

The reliquary bust of Santa Felicitas of Alicante is situated in the lower part and the copatrons, San Roque and San Francisco Javier, are situated on both sides.

ALICANTE'S CITY HALL: The building from Alicante's town hall is a baroque palace from the 18th century. It is a unique building with towers at the ends and it is divided into three floors which conclude on a balustrade. The main door is located in the town hall's square and the back door in Santa Faz square. The City Hall's square is directly linked to Alicante's history and we could consider it as the main square of the city, not so much for its size nor its majesty, but for being located in front of the town hall houses and for having witnessed the development of history.

Formerly known as Plaza del Mar, it had the first paved promenade of the city, El Enlosado. It took Alfonso XII's name after his enthronement and until 1931, when Spain became a Republic. Franco dictatorship named it with the sadly famous 18 of July, and it continued like that until May 1979, in one of the first plenary sessions of the recovered democracy, when the mayor José Luis Lassaletta approved its change of name together with other public roads linked to Franco regime.

STOP 9. Museums: MACA and MUBAG.

If we go deeper into the old quarter of the city of Alicante, we´ll find three landmarks worth visiting. In Gravina Street we find Gravina´s Museum of Fine Arts (MUBAG for its name in Spanish - Museo de Bellas Artes Gravina). This room exhibition is located in the palace of Count of Lumiares, a building of four floors built between 1748 and 1808 and declared Historic-Artistic Monument of local nature.

The conception of the museum stems from rehabilitation works in the building, which was property of Count of Lumiares. D. Antonio Valcárcel Pío de Saboya (1748-1808), who was an illustrious person from Alicante interested in archeology and numismatic.

Since the 18th century this type of civil buildings spread all over the city to be used as merchants´ residences seeing that trade was an activity in boom in such a maritime city like Alicante. Located between the wall of Postiguet and the staircase of Santa María, this residence was built over the ruins of demolished buildings during the War of the Spanish Succession.

Its magnificent façade of organized and austere composition was built with masonry of the nearby Sierra de San Julián. On the inside, the arcades on the ground floor modulate the brightness of an area aimed to be deposit of cargoes that were also added, considering the location of temporary exhibitions, with the possibility of entering from the parallel street or through the main entrance of the Museum. The museum gathers the most outstanding of Alicante’s paintings of the 19th century. The exhibition consists of more than sixty works sorted chronologically that tell the stages a painter of the time went through.

Following Gravina Street, we find the stairway that leads to the square where the Basilica of Santa María is located. It’s the oldest church in the city and was built in Valencian Gothic style between the 14th and 16th centuries on the remains of Alicante’s old mosque, built during the Muslim rule. It’s formed by a single nave without transept, and it has side chapels between the buttresses. After a fire took place during the 15th century, it had to be rebuilt, that’s why its façade is Baroque and crowned by two asymmetric towers built in the 14th and 18th centuries respectively. The cover, with an image of Virgin Mary made by the sculptor Juan Bautista Borja, stands out of this magnificent religious building. Inside, the Rococo altar of the 18th century and the chapels of Baptism, the Immaculate Conception and the Communion, stand out from other elements. The chapterhouse contains an enormous baptismal font from the 16th century and a Valencian baroque organ from 1653.

During the Spanish Civil War, it was attacked and an 18th century image of Virgin Mary was mutilated and its organ and Renaissance pile were destroyed, followed by a large bonfire in the adjacent square with some of its altars. From 1936 to 1939 it was used as a military warehouse. In 2007, after a request made by Alicante’s city council to the Vatican, the temple was promoted to the category of Basilica.

The Museum of Contemporary Art of Alicante (MACA) is located on the north side of this square. It is an impressive new building that occupies a block and integrates the sober volume of the House of La Asegurada, the oldest civil building in the city, built in 1685 as a wheat deposit; it’s also an outstanding example of the Valencian Baroque.

The MACA is one of the most important cultural facilities of the city, owned by Alicante’s city council. It was built according to the project of the Sancho-Madridejos Architecture Studio; it has 4680 m2 of total surface and is arranged on four floors above ground and two basements. It has a room for temporary exhibitions and four rooms for the exhibition of permanent collections, as well as spaces for the library, didactics, the assembly hall, reservations, warehouses, workshops, security, administration, etc. It has wide spaces flooded with light where the varied and rich collections of contemporary art of the museum are exposed attending to a very rigorous museographic program in which conservation and didactics are a priority. This museum is heir to the old Museum of La Asegurada, opened in 1977.

STOP 10. La Explanada and singular buildings.

The Explanada of Spain or Paseo de la Explanada is the most famous urban environment in the city of Alicante. It is characterized by its floor’s shape: it has around six and half million of tesserae which form a red, white and blue draw similar to the waves of the Mediterranean Sea. A similar drawing can be found in the promenade of Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro (Brasil). Its length extends from the Puerta del Mar to Canalejas’ park. Its 500m long are covered by 4 lines of palm trees. Under these palm trees, locals and tourists have a rest while taking a sit in one of the typical wooden chairs which are all over the place.

Before the Spanish Civil War, the Explanada was called Paseo de los Mártires de la Libertad (Liberal Martyrs promenade), a name in memory of a group of liberals who were involved in a military uprising in 1844 and were executed.

There are bars, restaurants and cafes on the Explanada where we can enjoy the typical Alicante’s cuisine, and there are also crafts stands where you can find different souvenirs. Here we can see one of the most symbolic buildings of Alicante, the Carbonell House. It was created by the architect Iván Vidal Ramos and it’s a residential construction that was inaugurated in 1935 and that presents historicist elements, and which is inspired in Valencian modernism. Nowadays, at the ground floor there are shops and offices, however, the rest of the building is for houses.

There’s a sculpture called The Butterfly designed by Manolo Valdés in the Explanada since a couple of years. It is made of aluminum and epoxy resin. Before being in Alicante, this sculpture was at the City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia. Another wellknown landmark of the Explanada is the municipal auditorium. Its stage hosts many concerts of the Symphonic Municipal Band. In the summer, it hosts summer festivals as the International folklore festival and Alacant Rock. It is commonly known as the Concha (the shell). It´s one of the most visited cultural centers of the city because its regular visitants add to hundreds of people walking up and down the Explanada and stop to enjoy the concerts. Its particular shape of shell gives this auditorium a perfect acoustic sound.