A fascist monument still standing on the Costa Blanca

A fascist monument on the Costa Blanca. Been wanting to capture this monstrosity for a while now. So after yomping a couple of kilometers back along a motorway with no pavement in over 30 degrees heat I finally find the location between the airport and Alicante. It was built by Franco in the early forties to commemorate 50 fascists from the Vega Baja who were taken out on the very spot by Republican troops as they headed towards Alicante with a plan to free Falangist leader Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera who was being held in the town. There's no signage other than the recent fash graffiti- For the Martyrs of Spain - but the ugly nazi brutalism is blatant. Why it's still standing, and well maintained, is beyond me.

Bunkers out on the old Alicante/Madrid road at Torrellano

If you've ever flown into Alicante Airport the conurbation right on the flight path adjacent to the runways is Torrellano. You can hop down to the town either on the bus or the train from Alicante. Back out towards the airport road, and sitting plum on the side of the road, is a bunker that would have guarded the road inland and off towards Madrid. Clearly it has had extensive renovation works and has been recently re-rendered. Possibly leaving it a little bit over-preserved for my liking. Head up the semi-disused road alongside it and you will find the roof of a another bunker that has collapsed in on itself. This is the real deal and gives you a real feel for the solid construction of these defences. A bit further on, following the cycle path, you can see the location of a trench network that was taken out during recent road development works. I could only guess at the location from an earlier map. Head back into Torrellano and you will find some fantastic bars and restaurants. The rail station is a fair walk but has its only little museum with some Civil War era trains and memorabilia on display. Well worth taking in.

The anti-aircraft position on Serra Grossa over Alicante

High above the City of Alicante, the Serra Grossa rises to the north just a kilometer or so beyond Santa Barbara Castle. The mountain frames the backdrop to the first concentration camp at Los Almendros which we have visited a couple of times before. What I hadn't realised, until I stumbled across a local Spanish website, was that the Serra Grossa is also the location of a key Civil War anti-aircraft battery which remains in superb condition. You reach it by accessing a track which winds its way up the back of the mountain from just behind the tram stop at its base. It's a steep path but easily doable and once you reach the vantage point, with its sweeping views across the Bay of Alicante, you can imagine the hard graft that the gunners would have had to put in trying to bring down the Italian and Condor Legion planes on their bombing raids over the City. The trenches and storage blocks around the gun emplacement are incredibly well preserved 80 years on. If you are in Alicante, take a couple of hours out to visit the Serra Grossa battery and the neighbouring site of the Los Almendros camp. You won't regret it.

Republican trenches at Rojales

I'd picked up a tip from an ex-pat blog post from some years back in Torrevieja that there were some Republican slit trenches near Rojales. Probably defending the old road inland from the naval base at Cartagena. The information was sketchy but suggested that they were just outside Rojales along the dried river bed of the Segura as it heads towards the coast to Guardamar. On a fresh February morning I jumped a couple of buses and decided to do the walk inland along the river. It's about two hours each way. A lot quicker to hire a bike if the bike hire shop is open! Anyway, I made it into Rojales in time for a lunch and it's a beautiful, historic little town. Over lunch I check the limited details I had and headed back out on the hunt. After a couple of false starts I found a hill cut back from the road that seemed to fit the description. Unfortunately it had been recently fenced off and I needed to get on top of it. I'd walked a long way and didn't want to go back empty handed and where there's a will there's a way! Squeezing through a narrow gap I clambered up and was rewarded with an extraordinarily well-preserved network of slit trenches elevated above the old road. Snapping my pics I got away as quick as I could. Nowhere on the web have I seen pictures of these important anti-fascist military positions. I was chuffed and headed off for the long walk back to Guardamar and some celebratory beers and tapas before the bus home rolled in.

Trenches and other defensive positions on the old Alicante road

At the very far end of the Nature Reserve at the Clot de Galvany you can find some of the best preserved Republican positions on the whole of the Costa Blanca. These positions would have protected the old route from the south up into Alicante when a seaborne invasion supported by Hitler and Mussolini along the coast down to Cartagena was seen as a real possibility. The concrete slit trench would have been equipped with light machine guns behind the main bunkers. It's a long walk through the Reserve to get to these points but the wildlife and scenery en-route are stunning.

The bunker protecting the disused rail line into Alicante docks

I was on a bus on the way into Alicante when idly glancing out the window I spotted across the road through some bushes what looked like the curved concrete roof of a bunker. Jumping off at the next stop I crossed the busy three lane into town, climbed a couple of fences and was stunned to find a perfectly preserved Republican gun post protecting the now-disused single track railway line into the Port of Alicante. I have never seen this one documented before. Not only is the bunker in great condition but you can follow the overgrown rail track all the way up to the old derelict station which would have been the main point for supplies into the City as it held out to the end during the Civil War. This discovery really did blow me away and is one of the most extraordinary slices of living history that I've come across on this journey.