THE ITALIAN ARMY BASE IN VILLAJOYOSA

If you head south along the beautiful sea front bay of Villajoyosa you will reach a rough coastal path, eventually this comes to an end at the Playa de los Puntos de Moro and you need to briefly head back in land before you can pick up the rough path that takes you back up to the cliff top and a superb, panoramic view across the bay. If you carry on along the path you will see looming large the ruins of the Villa Giacomina. You really can't miss it. The villa was built by Dr Alfonso Esquerdo who was the leader of the Republican Party in Villajoyosa and a major benefactor. The villa was named after his Argentinian wife, towards the end of the conflict it was used as a hospital but after the final fall of Alicante it was seized as a base by the Italian Fascist troops operating under Franco's direction across the region. When those troops left the villa fell into disuse and disrepair and has remained that way ever since. It is now a ruin, daubed in graffiti but there's a strange and ery feel to the place which now seems to stand as nothing more than a monument to the ghosts of Spain's Civil War past on this part of the Costa Blanca.