The Civil War air raid siren in the Santa Pola castle

I must have wandered through the square of the castle in the middle of Santa Pola dozens of times but I had a friend with me who had never been and as he looked up at the bell tower he casually asked "is that a siren up there?". I had never clocked it before and the grey mushroom-shaped metal piece jumped out me as I focussed in. I did a quick check on a previous blog entry and it is very similar to the siren on display in Alicante Market and definitely a throwback to the Civil War. It makes sense, Santa Pola was in the front line for the airborne raids of the Condor Legion bombers and the bell tower would be the logical place to place a siren. And there, over eighty years on, it still sits. I owed Tony a lunch down by the harbour for spotting it and his eagle-eyed vigilance reinforces the motto of the amateur historian - look up!