Located at the southern exit of Alicante and overlooking the sea, this park lives up to its name by drawing hundreds of palm trees between roads and water areas with waterfalls, divided into two parts: leisure and social.
Great experience visiting the museum!
This Orihuela beach with fine white sand has the Blue Flag quality mark. It has a length of 167 meters. It has public toilets, a rescue station, footbaths, etc. It is a comfortable cove with a beach bar, restaurant, umbrellas and hammocks.
Love this quiet place!!
It is the most authentic place to visit in Alicante. It begins at the foot of Mount Benacantil and is the best way to climb the castle of Santa Barbara. To its tangle of narrow streets, low houses and white facades appear, making the color of the flowers that adorn the narrow balconies stand out even more. They mix artists, bohemians and lifelong Alicante people.
The Balcony of Alicante is a beautiful viewpoint in the Sierra del Maigmó where you can disconnect seeing a spectacular panoramic view of the coast. On a clear day you can get to see Alicante and the Mediterranean Sea. Access can be done right here by car, motorcycle, bike or hiking. It is true that for a long time an improvement in the pavement has been demanded since the climb with cars or motorcycles with so much loose gravel is not easy. In the viewpoint area there are picnic areas to eat there and sit in the middle of nature and with the best views, but be careful, do not go without food and drink because there is no service available upstairs. They are in good condition and going up there and making a route through the roads that are there and then end up eating there is a good plan.
In order to store and maintain the snow for the production and commercialization of ice, used for various purposes (therapeutic, culinary, preservatives, etc.), during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many deposits were built in Spain, called "neveros" or snow pits. The Gran cava is one of them. The description of the property extracted from the public property deed says: "Rustic. Covered and paved well called the "Nevera Grande" (big fridge), with the right to collect snow (to fill it) in an area of land of over one hundred days, equivalent to forty-nine hectares, eighty-six areas and fifty-six hectares, located on the Mountain range of Mariola, term of the town of Agres, departure of Cova Grande. Linda everywhere with inheritance lands from which it comes. " A hundred years ago, with the revolution that in the ice industry was assuming the artificial production of cold, the snow deposits fell into disuse and were abandoned. The Cava Gran stopped being used and its owner agreed to the dismantling of its roof for the recycling of certain construction materials. We know that bricks, tiles, ashlars and wooden structural elements, coming from the cellar, were reused in repairs of the convent of Franciscans, on the roof of the Sanctuary of Agres and in a house in the town (Vicedo Martínez and Ramírez Gosálvez, 2004) . After the dismantling of the tile roof, the magnificent arched structure that supported it was exposed, and the Cava Gran was acquired by the other name by which it is known, Cava Arquejada. This fact, the dismantling of the roof, also favored the installation of plant species on the construction remains of the nevero, among which include an invasive colonization of ivies, highly destructive to building materials, and the presence of a specimen of Yew rooted in the bottom of the glass of the nevero, next to the shade side. Photography has given us invaluable information in recent times, because through a snapshot taken possibly in the 1920s, we can know exactly how the Gran de Agres cava was covered. This image, today the oldest preserved of the Cava Gran, we can find it displayed in the Library Room of the MARQ during the period that the exhibition is maintained thanks to the temporary cession of its owner, family of Pascual Revert. La Cava Gran is a protected cultural asset. It is classified as a Property of Local Relevance by the Fifth Additional Provision of Law 5/2007, of February 9, of the Generalitat Valenciana. The Cava Gran was built for the storage and conservation of snow. It was configured as a covered well, partially excavated in the rock and embedded in a slope of the summits of the Sierra de Mariola with slope to the southeast. The reservoir tank has an inverted frustoconical volume, with a circular section in the interior and a hexagonal façade on the upper part. The structure of its roof is a pointed ribbed vault, formed by six semi-arches of ashlar masonry. It is topped by a pinnacle of more than three tons of weight. Acquired by the Provincial Delegation of Alicante in December 2008 for the amount of € 152,000, since 2010 various works have been developed for its value. Restoration and musealization works are currently underway, planned and directed by the Department of Architecture of the Provincial Council, whose completion is expected in the month of July 2015.
Almudaina is located at 587 metres above sea level in the mountainous area of El Comtat, inland of Alicante. Visitors who come to this tranquil and pleasant place can now discover the historic Almudaina tower. It is a sign of the town’s identity, and was described as rough and square, by Gabriel Miró in his novel Las cerezas del cementerio (Cementery cherries) (1910). Built in the Medieval Islamic period, the towe formed part of the fortified stronghold (the cortig) of a small hamlet. The settlement was known from then on as `al-Mudayyina’: the citadel, from which today’s name Almudaina comes from. Restoration work carried out on the tower and its surroundings has uncovered a number of marks on the walls. These are evidence of the curious technique used in the tower’s construction and the sequences of changes that it went through in its 800 years of history. Entering through the threshold of the tower’s small doorway, visitors are able to explore inside the fortification. Here, display panels submerge visitors in the history of the tower and of Almudaina. Along with the tower, Gabriel Miró Posuna* has a great deal to offer travellers. *Posuna is the literary name of Almudaina.
Illeta dels Banyets is one of the most known and earliest excavated archaeological sites of Alicante. Call and ask for guided tours. It is located in the municipality of Campello, about 9 kilometres away from the city of Alicante. Illeta del Banyets is an old peninsula, which an uncertain time ago was torn apart from the coast due to an earthquake. As a consequence of this earthquake, the part that kept it to the soil was eroded and destroyed. In 1943, it was linked again to the soil, becoming thus part of the natural finger pier. In order to achieve this, dynamite was used, destroying a large part of the prehistoric necropolis. Currently, Illeta dels Banyets is a narrow and long promontory with a surface of 10,000 square metres, 4,000 square metres of which make up the archaeological site, which reaches its peak point at a height of about 7.8 metres above sea level. In spite of its reduced extension, this site is of great importance due to its huge cultural blend, because it hovers remains of the Bronze Age, prior to those that constitute an Iberian site, where remains of a Roman town can be found. Furthermore, remains of Islamic constructions tell us about a temporary occupation during the Medieval Ages. All these proves that Illeta dels Banyets was an important commercial port, from which it was possible to dominate the maritime ways as well as those ways which permitted to penetrate into the interior. The first evidences that prove an occupation go back to Prehistory, more precisely by the end of the Neolithic, during which the inhabitants lived in oval shaped cottages, which some have remained until our days. Subsequently, during the Bronze Age, two large underground tanks partly excavated in the rocks, around which entombments and housing structures were built. Inside the tombs, metal punches and knives, marble bracelets, knobs and buttons and some ceramic glasses have been found. The following level is the Iberian Age, which reaches from the 4th century to part of the 3rd century B.C., during which a very important township developed. Only a small part of this township has been excavated. On both sides of a street that stretches along the length of the island, the visitor can see: two temples, storage houses and housing estates, some of them of great architectural complexity. Due to these buildings' singularity and their rich variety, this core can be interpreted as an emporium, an important site of commercial exchange. On solid ground, next to the tower dating from the Modern Age, a pottery has been discovered destined to produce Iberian amphorae, where several ovens have been excavated. The highest level is constituted by the Roman Age, dating from between the 1st and the 2nd century. On the foundations of the abandoned Iberian township, a Roman city was built, with annexing thermal baths. Not many remains have been preserved, although it is possible to distinguish the residential area of the owner (pars urbana) and another area related with agricultural activities (pars rustica). A very simple thermal building has been found, which is located in a narrow warehouse. Inside of it, the oven, the hot lounge, the tepidarium and the frigidarium - apodyterium are aligned. The remains of a series of fish bins, which were cut in the rocks and connected to the sea through a number of trap holes date also from this age. The fish bins. One of the most important activities developed in this part of the Roman Empire was the exploitation of the sea resources, and more specifically the fish preserving and stock ponds. Several fish preserving facilities are known in the province, the most important is the one located in Portus Ilicitanus. The fish bins that still are preserved on La Illeta dels Banyets, have suffered much erosion by the sea. They are constituted by four pools, which are connected to each other. The dimension of the largest is 8.7 x 3.10 metres and seawater pours in through two channels located on each side. The other three pools, smaller that the first one, are aligned at right angle to the largest. They are connected to each other by vertical slots, which are cut in the rock. This mechanism was simultaneously used to facilitate the opening and locking of the gates.
Download your Alicante guide!