Fortress of the XI century, created by the Muslims, is located on the rock in the highest part of the municipality. It had a very important role throughout the Middle and Modern Ages, thanks to its strategic location. The earthquakes of 1644 and 1748 and the blast that he suffered in 1708 in the War of Succession were the culprits of its destruction.
The Torre del Tamarit, also known as Torre de la Albufera or Torre de las Salinas, has a square floor plan and is located between Torre del Pinet and Castillo-Fortaleza de Santa Pola. Being a little away from the coast, its main function was not to monitor the maritime coastline, but to allow communication with the towers of the Elche field and monitor the salt pans. The tower of the Tamarit, owned by Bras del Port SA, is located in an exceptional place, in one of the lagoons of the Natural Park of the Saltworks of Santa Pola, which houses various environments: the salt works near the sea, the water pools sweet permanently flooded and its peripheral areas. The fauna and flora adapt to the conditions of humidity and high salinity. The concentrations of flamingos that add up to thousands of specimens are spectacular. It also highlights the presence of the White Jar, the Pardilla Teal, the Avoceta, the Cigüeñela, the Black-rumped Chorlitejo, the Charrancito or the Common Tern. The Vigía Towers were built in 1552, under the reign of Felipe II. They are strategically located to spot the enemy before it reaches the coast and communicate with each other through smoked by day and by night luminaries. They are: Torre del Tamarit in Las Salinas, Escaletes in the Sierra and Atalayola in the current lighthouse. His custody was entrusted to four attackers: two on foot, who carried out continuous surveillance, and two on horseback, who controlled the route between two towers: communication, request for help, etc. Both the Escaletes Tower and the Atalayola (current Faro) had guards on foot, but not on horseback, so the liaison function was carried out by the two atajadores of the castle.
The Escaletes Tower, also known as Torre i Pep, has a circular floor plan and its main function consisted of the surveillance of this maritime sector, paying special attention to any enemy vessel that could have hidden in the nearby island of Tabarca. In that case, he had to immediately send warning signals to the Atalaiola tower and the Castillo-Fortaleza de Santa Pola. The Vigía Towers were built in 1552, under the reign of Felipe II. They are strategically located to spot the enemy before it reaches the coast and communicate with each other through smoked by day and by night luminaries. They are: Torre del Tamarit in Las Salinas, Escaletes in the Sierra and Atalayola in the current lighthouse. His custody was entrusted to four attackers: two on foot, who carried out continuous surveillance, and two on horseback, who controlled the route between two towers: communication, request for help, etc. Both the Escaletes Tower and the Atalayola (current Faro) had guards on foot, but not on horseback, so the liaison function was carried out by the two atajadores of the castle.
It is located at the eastern end of Cape Santa Pola, on an old watchtower of the sixteenth century, called Atalayola. It was installed in 1858 for the orientation of the ships that sail along these coasts at night, especially for the Navy ships, which anchored in the bay of Santa Pola in the year of its construction. It currently has a light source located 152 meters above sea level and 15 meters above the ground; its appearance is FGpD (2 + 1) B with a period of 20 "; Its maximum range is 16 miles and is a visual reference of great help for navigation. From here you can see a magnificent view of the bay of Santa Pola, Alicante and the Island of Tabarca. In the clearest days you can see Cabo Cervera and Isla Grosa to the south and Peñón de Ifach to the east.
La Torreta de Elda is a medieval defensive building located in the municipality of Elda, in the province of Alicante. It is considered as an Asset of Cultural Interest. It is located at a height of 550 meters and is a rectangular tower with four annexes, also rectangular. The date of construction is calculated between the end of the 14th century and the beginning of the 15th century. Its objective responded to the border location between the kingdoms of Castile and Valencia. In particular, the turret protected the road between Elda and Sax, as well as the path of La Noguera, which heads towards Petrel. It is documented that in 1386, the lady of Elda, Sibila de Forcia, asked Pedro IV de Aragón for a surveillance and customs service. Its continued use is recorded in a document of 1494 between the County of Cocentaina and the Bishopric of Cartagena, in which the Torreta is cited as possession of the then Lord of Elda, Juan Roig de Corella. In December of 1705, the Turret was used for military surveillance, in the context of the War of Succession. After the War of Independence it lost its function and was abandoned.
Located on the coast of Orihuela, in the urbanization of Cabo Roig. It is a military building of the watch tower type, it was built in the XVI century, in order to watch the coast and prevent the attacks of pirates and Berbers. His location (in the middle of a geographical accident) gave him a much wider vision of the area he was watching. The tower is a cylindrical construction with a base at the base, on the slope is located the access door. It was made in masonry, arranging ashlars in the openings as the entrance door. The surface of the façade is slightly inclined, with the base plan being wider than the terrace. so that more than a cylinder has raised cylindrical trunk. After its restoration, a layer of white lime was superimposed on the facade to decorate it, hence its current white color. The entire facade is dotted with numerous small windows with which to monitor the area that corresponded. The slope of the base reaches the height of three meters. The interior is arranged in two heights and terrace. The first corresponds to the ground floor, the second to the first floor and finally the terrace. Of its interior it is only remarkable the vault that divides the tower in two heights (ground floor and first floor) made in bricks. It was declared an Asset of Cultural Interest.
The Palace of the Marquises of Ruvalcaba, or Ruvalcaba Palace, is an Oriolan palace that was formerly owned by the Sagredo Bassieres and Heredia Marquises de Ruvalcaba family. In the 1980s it was acquired by the municipality of Orihuela, the current owner, as a place for large receptions in the city. At present it is closed to visitors. The Palace was built by the 1930s, on the site that was left after the Abacial House of the Church of Santiago collapsed. It belonged to the family of the Marquis of Rubalcava, constituting this his residence. It was acquired by the Hon. Orihuela City Council in 1981, with the aim of conserving and being able to offer the public its interior and to give it a social and cultural use. In 1981 the municipal office of tourism was installed there, occupying it until nowadays. However, this has not been the only use it has had since in 1982 the Association of Moors and Christians Festivities "Santas Justa y Rufina" used part of its ground floor as its headquarters; in 1986 it became the Archaeological Museum and in 1990 it was used as the headquarters of the Municipal Department of Social Services. The Rubalcava Palace was included in its day in the "Provisional Guide of Architecture of Orihuela" due to its evident architectural interest, edited by the Historical Archive Commission of the College of Architects of Alicante. At the moment it appears in the Catalog of the Special Plan of Protection of the Historical Helmet of Orihuela. The building consists of three main floors with small mezzanines. At first the ground floor was used as an office, home of the landlords and garages. The first floor, which is the main area of the palace, is occupied by a series of ostentatious rooms. Also in it was the main kitchen. On the second floor were the bedrooms of the marquesal family and on a mezzanine floor a second kitchen. Apart the palace consists of gardens with an iron gate on masonry walls. These walls contribute to isolate the building from the outside, while providing recreational areas, with fountains and benches of tiles and wrought iron. The building was built imitating the scheme of the baroque Oriolan palaces. The scheme that followed the Ruvalcaba palace of said Oriolan palaces is to have a hallway illuminated by a Neo-Baroque dome with an elliptical plan and access to the main floor by means of a marble staircase with Valencian tile base.
This is a luxurious noble Roman villa constructed in the IV Century AD. It is made up of a large patio with columns surrounded by a wide corridor which gives access to 7 rooms -triclinium (dinning room), oecus (living room) and cubicula (bedrooms)- decorated with polychrome geometrical mosaics and mural paintings. This mansion must have been the residence of a rich family which was involved in the Portus Illicitanus. An aristocratic landowning family lived in this house. Like all rich people of the time, they placed great importance on the decorating of rooms, using materials such as marble, alabaster and making paintings and mosaics. In order to avoid the darkness of the nights, they lit up the house with oil lamps (made of clay or bronze). Due to their religiousness, they had a special place in the house where they worshiped the gods, above all Venus, the goddess of the fishermen.
The obligatory visit of the traveler who arrives at Novelda is to the Sanctuary of Santa María Magdalena. This religious building was built from a project drawn up by the novel engineer Don José Sala Sala who imbued his project with the Catalan modernist style. Its construction, begun in 1918, required three phases, to complete the work in 1946. Two 25 m lateral towers stand out on the main façade. of height culminated by a stony cross, which is also found in the dome and on the upper arches of the façade. The decorative reasons would have antecedents in the medieval styles, baroque and in the own nature; influences that led the author to combine pebbles from the Vinalopó river, polychrome tiles, bricks, reddish colors, masonry, etc., which are reflected throughout the exterior of the building. The interior is composed of a rectangular central nave with two attached side spaces; In the background, in the apse, is the dressing room of St. Mary Magdalene, Patroness of Novelda, and behind the altar we can admire a beautiful painting attributed to Gaston Castelló. The maintenance and restoration works are constant, the last of them carried out during the year 2006 where the pictorial recovery of several of the canvases that decorate the temple was carried out and among which the work of the renowned artist should be highlighted. Alicante artist Gastón Castelló located in the center of the altar.
It rises on one of the two hills that dominate the town of the same name, northeast of the town, in the Middle Vinalopó (Alicante, Spain). The Castle of Monóvar was built in the Almohad period, between the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th, and was used until the beginning of the 17th century. It had a privileged situation, from which dominated the network of fortifications that marked the Vinalopó River, (the castles and the Elda turret, and Petrel Castle), as well as the communication route of the Pinoso-Jumilla corridor, natural exit towards Murcia and Andalusia. It was a castle with an irregular plan, similar to a triangle. In the center is the Homage Tower, where there was also a cistern. You can also see remains of a smaller tower on the north face, and some canvases of the wall. In the archaeological excavations that have been made on the hill where the castle was erected, archaeological remains from the Bronze Age, fragments of Almohad pottery from the 12th and 13th centuries, a piece of jewelery from the 15th or 16th centuries and fragments of jugs, plates and bowls from the fourteenth century onwards. At present it is in ruins and only retains part of a tower, recently restored.
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