"If there is a particularly romantic and evocative square in Alicante, it is Gabriel Miró's square." It is the city council itself that states this in the section dedicated to it on its tourism website, and it can be said that the people of Alicante agree with that assessment.
For this reason, it is especially disheartening for residents that vandalism is affecting the place without the authorities seem capable of preventing it or the necessary repairs being carried out with any diligence.
It was in May of last year when one morning one of the stone spheres that adorn the existing benches in each of the four corners of the square appeared broken. Someone might have thought then that an accident had occurred. Ten months later, it's hard to imagine: five of the sixteen ornaments are broken; the remains of some still rest on the ground.
The residents of the area draw attention to the poor state of the vegetation, which is obvious due to its absence in some cases and its dryness, with the irrigation tubes exposed in the air in several areas, and to the graffiti that covers the columns of the central area and the information signs in the square, such as the one that accompanies the bust of the writer who gives it its name - Gabriel Miró - a sculpture that in the past was also the target of vandals.
Most Alicante residents refer to the place as "Plaza de Correos", because its most characteristic building housed the headquarters of the postal company until the Generalitat Valenciana recently bought the property. Its monumental and leafy ficus trees give it the valuable shade and freshness that is so valued in these latitudes, a sensation that accentuates the bubbling of the La Aguadora fountain, installed on its pedestal since 1918, the work of Vicente Bañuls, and whose latest restoration was produced in 2020.
Located in the heart of the traditional center, the presence of tourists is constant, since Castaños Street ends there, a pedestrian axis full of restaurants and bars, the birthplace of the popular afternoon tea, and a few meters away is La Explanada. The guides explain that this was in the past the Plaza de las Barcas, because until the city reclaimed land from the sea, the fishermen beached their boats in the existing cove here.
Suddenly, a startle among the tourists alerts the race of a rat that crosses and quickly ascends to hide in the trunk of one of the centuries-old ficus trees. He warns a passerby that the scene is far from uncommon and, in fact, it doesn't take long for it to happen again. Live stuff.
