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Places of Interest
The entrance into Alicante may be through the Playa de Postiguet and the Mole Rocosa where the Santa Barbara castle is located. The city is filled with palm trees and the sea constitutes a constant presence. The castle, accessible by elevator, looks over almost the entire old city, piled along the Port and Explanada Way. The church of Santa Maria, located in the old city, has a facade that is a true representative of the baroque style of Valencia. The City Hall, the co-cathedral of San Nicolas, and the baroque and mannerist facade of the neighboring street of Labradores, are the principal monuments of the city, all of it gathered in the small space of its old city.
La Rambla, perpendicular to the Explanada way and also surrounded by palm trees, is the center of the everyday life in Alicante. The visitor has the possibility to try horchata at any of the terraces and ice cream parlors of these two city arteries.
An interesting car route is to take the national highway going towards Murcia. A little after leaving Alicante, a junction introduces the city of Elche: we leave for later the visit to this city and the lands of the interior of the province. Through a flat landscape, which was occupied by salt mines not long ago, you reach Santa Pola.
Santa Pola is located only 18 kilometers away from Alicante; its fishing port has always enjoyed a well-deserved reputation due to its excellent catch of shrimp and red mullets. Although the tourist wave has reached Santa Pola, it still holds periodical sales of out of the boat fish, all in the traditional and noisy environment of the fish market. In its urban center, an old fortress built in the XVI century reminds us of the time Santa Pola performed as the Port of Elche, always threatened by the barbarians. The Santa Pola Cape, right next to the town, has a very wide view, with the Tabarca Island very nearby.You may reach Benidorm through Altea, passing through the beach of the very representative El Albir, or directly from Polop. The first visit here must be to the small redoubt of old streets that were the summer's center until about 30 years ago. The Balcony of the Mediterranean is a viewpoint that occupies the land of the old fortress, from which the beaches of Levante (east) and Poniente (west) can be seen as well as the nearby Isle of Benidorm. The promenade, parallel to the beach of Levante, the urban development of modern buildings and the large number of stores, restaurants, terraces, ice cream parlors, discotheques and all kinds of leisure places, constitute also an spectacle that deserves the traveler's attention. The people who occupy the streets in the summer months become part of this peculiar scenography that characterizes the big tourist agglomerations.
Santa Barbara Castle: Is the most emblematic construction of the city. It is a fortified building that crowns the Benacantil Mount and that looks over the city of Alicante and its bay from its height of 166 meters. The archeological findings make us think of the existence of an Iberian chaste. However, the current buildings are in their majority from the kingdom of Felipe II, the beginning of their construction dates as far back as 1562.
The City Hall: It is a civil baroque architectural work, the construction started in 1701. In the lower level, in the first step of the interior staircase, there is a metallic disc that signals ground cero and works as a reference point to measure the height over the level of the sea of all the places in Spain. This is possible thanks to the low variation of tides in Alicante. The construction of the city hall ended in 1760.
Santa Faz Monastery: Within the city limit, although 8 kms to the north of the city, is the Santa Faz Monastery. Its construction finished in 1766. It has a renaissance style, although its baroque facade as well as the chamber of the shrine stands out. This chamber is said to contain a piece of the cloth that supposedly wiped the moisture off the face of Christ on his way to the Calvary.
Castle of San Fernando: It is located on the mount of Tossal. Currently it is dismantled, we could say that it is a fortress that was never finished, as its construction was very hasty due to the Independence War at the beginning of the XIX century. Currently, it is surrounded by a vast green zone destined to sports and leisure activities.
