Touring around the town, as one can do during an extended stay, you get the opportunity to dig a little deeper into the local history and culture. Here are some gems we uncovered while doing so in Alicante.
Settlement in the region goes back to the fifth century BCE (before the Christian Era). The climate, sea access, and fertile soils made it a natural place to settle. As was often the case around the Mediterranean Sea, things really took off once the Romans arrived. The original Roman town, called Lucentum lies stop a hill just a couple kilometers north of the current town. Oddly, it lies smack in the middle of a sprawling suburban village, setting up the juxtaposition of ancient ruins surrounded by modern villas and giant housing complexes.
The government has done a fine job preserving the outlines of the entire original Roman settlement, and even explaining how the remaining outlines of the buildings indicate they were used. All the critical pillars of Roman society are present: the gates, the fortifications, the street layout, the forum, the baths, the sewer and fresh water collection systems.
The site had a small (three Euro) entrance fee, was well signed in Spanish, Valencian (a relative of Catalan), and English. It was an easy walk from the local tram station, and of course there were bars nearby to rehydrate with a caƱa or aperol!
On another sunny day, we decided to trek to the top of Mount Benacantil, the rocky top upon which Santa Barbara castle sits. Last year, we took an interior elevator to the top, so this year we thought we might chance hiking up, if we left mid-morning. We got lucky in that it was an overcast day, but the hike still stretched us.
The castle is as imposing as ever:
I couldn’t help but notice the artillery pieces still held a perfect gunsight on the port:
They added some new features, including a video display of the history of the city, as well as some additional info on the siege of 1708-09. The latter makes a great story. During the war of the Spanish Succession, England & Austria took sides against France & Spain. The English occupied Alicante, until a French force landed and forced them to retreat up to the redoubts of Santa Barbara castle, which were impregnable to bombardment. The French Commander informed his English counterpart that his forces had dug a mine, and were going to ignite it and blow up the keep protecting the castle. The English commander decided it was a ruse, and refused to send a representative (under a flag of truce) to inspect the threatened mine. Instead he began digging down (from the castle) a counter-mine, to intersect the French effort and destroy it. On the designated ultimatum date, the English commander held a soiree at his headquarters, designed to show his complete confidence that the French effort could not succeed.
The French set off their explosives, but instead of damaging the exterior wall, it took down a significant chunk of the mountain top, killing most of the English officers and raining down chunks of rock, destroying over 400 homes in the city below. The surviving English garrison surrendered. Best of all, the explosion permanently changed the features of the rocky mountaintop, creating an image in stone called the face of “the Moor” (note: the castle was originally constructed by Moors when they controlled southern Spain).
Finally, I had noted in my research a teeny museum in the city center, the museo de belenes (Nativity Scene Museum). Free to access, but open only a few hours on a few days per week, this city government museum displays the artwork characteristic of Nativity scenes in Europe, and some from around the world. The tradition of Nativity scenes, marking the birth of Jesus, was probably started by St. Francis of Assisi in the 13th Century. It grew as a devotion across the continent and spread worldwide, involving both live recreations and small home displays of figurines. This museum features the latter, along with the characteristic artwork which evolved to cover other religious and secular historical scenes.
Looking at the displays, I was reminded of the complaint some raise that Christians “white-wash” the semitic origins of their faith. That is, the characters are often depicted as white, even northern European figures. First off, it’s not true, as some of these figurines display. But the larger point is that everywhere that the evangelists spread the Gospel, they depicted the Lord (or the Virgin, or the Saints) in ways that make them relevant to the local population. When Christianity spread to Europe, that meant making the figures “look” that way, and even set Biblical scenes in modern (for each age) setting, indicating Christ’s story is eternally relevant. When European missionaries went to the New World and Asia, they did the same thing, not to mention how many different ways the Blessed Virgin Mary has appeared in local guise. Sometimes people confuse being culturally relevant with cultural appropriation.
None of these excursions would be “must-see” visits, but they were all easy, informative, and enjoyable. Best of all, we could drop them into our daily routine when we wanted, so we never felt rushed, nor did we think “is this how I want to spend my limited time?” Just another example of the benefits of slow travel.