Heading in to Santa Pola along the coast road from the Alicante side, with the island of Tabarca to your left, you end up on a wide beachside promenade named after another famous son of the town and huge footballing name - Santiago Bernabeu.
But this man was no Republican hero like Manolo Macia.
One of Franco’s key captains, Santiago Bernabéu Yeste was an active right winger well before the conflict.
When war broke out he joined Franco’s army and became a captain in the 150th Moroccan Division. He was decorated for the role he played in the taking of Bielsa, a strategic town in the Pyrenees. But his real enduring claim to fame is that the Real Madrid stadium is named after him. I've heard and seen reports that the stadium itself was built by teams of Republican slave labour and the connection between Real and Franco, cemented by Bernabeu, is well documented.
It seems out of kilter that not a couple of kilometers from where the Santa Pola football stadium is named after, and celebrates, the great republican fighter Manolo Macia, a street pays tribute to one of Franco's key operators.
The nature reserve at Clot de Galvany - just behind Carabassi Beach - as the coast road heads down the hill from Gran Alacant to Arenales, is littered with some of best preserved Civil War defensive positions that have survived for the best part of 80 years.
These bunkers would have been set up to cover a land based attack on Alicante from an invasion possibly springing from landings along the coast anywhere down as far as Cartagena 100km south.
A network of bunkers, trenches and other defenses can be found throughout the nature reserve and it takes a couple of hours or more to cover the ground in a fine setting where you can also spot rare breeds of birds and other wildlife in this natural sanctuary. Can well recommend it for a visit, maps at the entrance locate the Civil War era bunkers.
