They are not there, raised above a valley on the summit closest to a town, isolated near a cliff, as mere decorative elements, nor as accommodations of aristocratic privilege. No, the stone fortresses that abound in Alicante's geography, whether monumental castles or solitary watchtowers, are guardians, surveillance posts or robust citadels that experienced sieges, assaults, bombings and violent landings.
More than 230 castles, fortifications, coastal towers, refuge towers, strong houses, forts and batteries populate the Alicante territory. Throughout history, the steep orography of its interior and its opening to a Mediterranean in permanent dispute, have turned Alicante into a crossroads and cultures, but also into a border land between kingdoms and ambitions, which populated its hills with fortresses and forts, and populated its coast with watchtowers because of the fear of corsair raids.
The MARQ Foundation had the idea of organizing a traveling exhibition - Stone Guardians, the castles of Alicante - which can now be seen in the Santa Bárbara castle. Or it can be lived, if one accepts the five routes suggested by the sample, a task for which it will be necessary to invest at least as many weekends. Let's see.
1. The castles of Tudmir.
The Vega Baja, a vast territory that includes plains and mountains, lagoons and cliffs, watered - little or a lot - by the Segura River, was part of the prosperous kūra or Islamic province of Tudmīr, a vast territory whose administration was retained by the Visigoth noble called Teodomiro ḅ. Gandarīš by virtue of a pact signed with the conqueror 'Abd al-'Azīz ḅ. Mūsà in the year 713.
In this region there are large fortifications that dominate the main cities, such as Orihuela, Callosa del Segura, Cox and excellent examples of coastal defenses, such as the towers of Cap Roig, Cap Çerver and La Mata.
2. The internal border.
One of the great borders that divided the territory derives from the Pact of Almizra, signed between the crowns of Castile and Aragon in the year 1244. Since that moment, a large part of the Vinalopó Valley has been lived in a permanent state of uncertainty and insecurity, by becoming a border zone where cavalcades, raids, invasions, conquests, recoveries and conflicts of greater or lesser rank occur over time.
It is the internal border, where the crowns of Aragon and Castile have multiple fortifications with which to offer certain protection to the settlers and Muslims who reside in this area and who have left us some of the most beautiful and spectacular castles in the province, such as the castles of Biar, Villena, Sax, Novelda or the Alcázar de la Señoría in Elx.
3. The key to the kingdom.
The territory of the Alacantí region is what the kings called the Clau del Regne, with the city of Alicante as a strategic center due to the impregnable layout of its castle and its walls. The fortress baptized as Santa Bárbara because on its day - December 4 - 1248 it was taken from the Arabs by the infante Alfonso, future Alfonso X.
Although most of its current structure is due to engineers, brought especially from Italy by Philip II, such as Giovanni Battista Antonelli, il Vecchio, Giorgio Palearo, Il Fratino, or Cristóbal Antonelli, who renovated it between 1562 and 1580.
The bombings that Alicante suffered in 1691 by the French squadron and the war actions carried out during the period 1706-1709, in the War of Succession, in which it was in the power of the English, seriously affected the entire complex, which suffered the last action. military in 1873 when the armored frigate "Numancia", in the hands of cantonalist rebels from Cartagena, launched its projectiles on the town and its castle, which would be demolished twenty years later.
4. The mountain castles.
The Alicante mountains are characterized by numerous mountain ranges and mountain ranges crisscrossed by rivers and streams, rich and fertile areas conducive to the settlement of the population, often in need of the protection offered by a fortification located on a hill. Some were built in the Almohad period to house and defend the population, such as in Planes, Perputxent in L'Orxa or the Torre Grossa Castle in Xixona. Many towers are built to defend the territory's farmhouses, such as Almudaina or the Torre de les Maçanes.
The Christian conquest allowed King James I to reach an agreement with the Muslim aljamas by which he became the new lord of a territory that ended up rising in rebellion under the command of the leader al-Azraq.
The conflict ended in 1276, with the Mudejar submission. The walled towns of Alcoi, Cocentaina or Penáguila were given to the main lords of the land, such as the famous Calabrian admiral Roger de Lauria, lord of Alcoi and Cocentaina.
5. The border of fear.
What we know today as the Costa Blanca could be considered for centuries as the frontier of fear, a strip located between the sea and the mountains whose agricultural and fishing exploitation constituted the sustenance of its population. From time to time, the feared corsairs landed, spreading terror, robbing, killing and kidnapping the often defenseless inhabitants.
Names like Barbarossa, Dragut or Hasan Veneziano have gone down in the chronicles for the assaults and destruction that their actions caused, and led to the creation of a line of crenellated towers and walls that can still be seen in towns such as La Vila Joiosa, Benidorm, Altea , Calp, Ifach, Benissa, Xàbia and Dénia. A defensive network erected between the second half of the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century, which today constitutes a peaceful historical heritage that largely still stands.
