Santa Bàrbara Castle

Feel the change in the air as you reach the top. Down in the city the breeze is warm and heavy with salt. Up here on the rock it is thinner and cleaner, and it carries the cry of gulls from far below. Under your feet the stone is pale and worn smooth by countless steps. Look out, and the Mediterranean spreads in every direction, a flat sheet of blue running to the horizon.

You are standing on Mount Benacantil, the rocky hill that rises straight up behind Alicante's seafront. It is a little over 160 metres high. That does not sound like much, but this hill climbs almost vertically from the edge of the water. For anyone who wanted to control this stretch of coast, that made it the obvious place to build. Whoever held this summit could watch every ship that came near the bay.

The story of a fortress here goes back more than a thousand years. During the period of Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula, known as al-Andalus, a fortified position stood on this summit. The Arabic-speaking rulers valued it for the same reason everyone after them did. It was high, hard to attack, and gave a clear view across land and sea. Much of what you see today is later, but the oldest layers sit at the very top.

The castle takes its name from a single day. On 4 December 1248, Castilian forces captured the fortress from its Muslim defenders. The campaign was led by the Infante Alfonso, a royal prince who later became King Alfonso the Tenth of Castile. In the Christian calendar, the fourth of December is the feast day of Saint Barbara. So the conquerors dedicated the castle to her, and the name has stayed for nearly eight centuries.

Here is something many visitors miss. Saint Barbara is traditionally the patron saint of artillery and of people who work with explosives. The dedication came from the calendar, not from cannons. Cannons did not yet exist in Europe in 1248. But over the following centuries, this hilltop filled with guns, gunpowder stores and soldiers. The name turned out to fit the place far better than its founders could have known.

As you walk, notice that the castle is not one building. It is arranged in three main levels, each from a different age. The highest area, around the old keep often called La Torreta, holds the oldest remains. The middle level was largely reshaped in the sixteenth century, under King Philip the Second of Spain. The lowest level dates mostly from the eighteenth century. Climbing up or down here means moving through the centuries in stages.

Those sixteenth-century changes had a clear purpose. By then, gunpowder had changed warfare completely. Tall, thin medieval walls could not stand up to cannon fire. So engineers built lower, thicker walls with angled bastions, which are pointed platforms that let defenders fire along the walls in several directions. Look at the shapes of the walls around you. The sharp angles and heavy slopes are not decoration. They were designed to deflect cannonballs and leave attackers with nowhere to hide.

The castle was tested many times. In the late seventeenth century, a French fleet bombarded Alicante from the sea. Then, in the early eighteenth century, Spain was torn apart by the War of the Spanish Succession, a European conflict over who would inherit the Spanish throne. English troops held this castle for a time. The besieging forces could not take it by direct assault. Instead, according to historical accounts, they dug a mine deep into the rock beneath the walls and filled it with explosives.

The explosion tore open part of the mountain. The defenders' commander was among those killed. It is one of the most dramatic episodes in the castle's long life, and it shows how far armies would go to win this summit. After the war, the castle was repaired and strengthened again. Later still, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, its military importance faded. For long periods it served as a prison, a quieter and darker chapter.

Now turn your attention back to the view, because it explains the whole city. Directly below is the port, with its moored boats and long breakwaters. Follow the coast and you can pick out the Explanada de España, the seafront promenade famous for its wavy mosaic pavement and rows of palm trees. To the side lies Postiguet beach, curving close under the rock. On a clear day, look out to sea for the low shape of Tabarca, a small island off the coast.

And here is the second surprise. If you go down to Postiguet beach later and look back up at this hill, study the rock face carefully. Many people see the profile of a human face in the cliff, with a brow, a nose and a chin. Locals call it La Cara del Moro, the Face of the Moor. Legend links it to tales from the age of Muslim rule. Whatever the story, once you see the face, it is hard to stop seeing it.

On the slope between the castle and the old town lies the neighbourhood of Santa Cruz. It is a maze of narrow, steep lanes and stairways. The houses are painted white and bright colours, and many walls are covered with pots of geraniums and other plants. Walking down through these streets is a good way to leave the castle. You move from stone fortifications into ordinary homes, where washing hangs from balconies and neighbours talk across doorways.

The way you arrived also tells a story. Many visitors come up by a lift that runs inside a shaft cut through the rock itself, starting near the beach. Others climb by road or on foot along winding paths. Either way, this was once a place that ordinary residents could not enter. Since the castle was opened to the public in the twentieth century, it has become a shared space, used for walks, exhibitions and summer events.

Before you leave, pause for a moment at the walls. Put your hand on the stone and feel how warm it has become in the sun. Listen to the wind, the gulls, and the faint sound of traffic far below. Every army that held this rock looked out at the same sea you are looking at now. As you walk away, glance back at the hill from the city streets. It will rise above you, steady and pale, as it has for centuries.