The secrets of Santa Barbara Castle

In an earlier post I looked at the fascist detention and torture centres at San Fernando Castle and the Bullring in Alicante. Standing guard over the port city is the magnificent Santa Barbara Castle which hides its own Civil War secrets. Torture cells, buried deep beneath the castle and utilised down the centuries, were pressred into service. I was unable to get in and could only snap a picture of their entrance gates. Although the castle is a major tourist attraction, with its history well mapped out for visitors, its Civil War role is carefully glossed over. Again though, I can strongly recommend a trip up from street level in the lift to the top the castle. The views and the sheer scale of the structure itself will take your breath away.

The mass air raid shelters in Elche

Elche, just an easy ride on the bus inland from Alicante, a city which boasts some extraordinary palm gardens and which is well worth a visit if you are ever out on the Costa Blanca. I can promise you won't be disappointed. But it was also a city which took a fearful pounding from the combined fascist air squadrons during the Civil War. In response, the Republican authorities built air raid shelters which are thought to have held tens of thousands of citizens, bigger even than the massive bunkers at Cartegena. Located adjacent to the magnificent Art Deco central market, last year the shelters, and even older historic remains above them, were partly uncovered. The pictures show what would have been an entrance way. The local council are exploring the possibility of opening the shelters up, possibly as a museum similar to Cartagena, but at the moment they are fenced off. I tried to scope what might have been the extent of their boundaries and a retaining wall appears to have been built into the banks of the dried river bed that carves its way through Elche, I've included that in the pictures. I will be watching the developments on this one carefully and will report again in the future.

The fascist detention and torture centres at San Fernando, Santa Barbara and the bullring

The fall of Alicante in March 1939 marked the end of the Civil War as the last stronghold of the Republic surrendered to Italian fascist troops. Many of the thousands rounded up on the dockside were transported to the temporary concentration camp at Los Alemdros, those that survived the starvation and brutality were shipped to the permanent camp at San Isidro. I've covered those sites in earlier posts. However, others after the fall, and specifically those sought out by the Falange and Franco's special forces were held in other parts of the City, notably the castles at San Fernando and Santa Barbara and the bull ring. These were torture and death centres. San Fernando is just at the edge of the main city and reached via some impressive steps. The castle is a cold and oppressive place even on a warm September day and as you look down from the walls into the deserted keep it sent a shiver down my spine. This is where many anti-fascists were held, tortured and executed and the stillness, and the fact that even though it is on the edge of this bustling metropolis it was completely deserted, added to the heavy atmosphere. Unlike Santa Barbara this place is not sold as a tourist attraction. On a walk back into town I stopped off at the bull ring, the musuem says nothing of its role in the civil war and I couldn't get inside the main arena and you can only guess at the terror of those hauled off there when Alicante fell. No memorials, no recognition, no nothing.

The Bombing of Alicante Market #2

An earlier post covered the bombing of Alicante Market in May 1938 and the fantastic steel memorial that the Historical Memory comrades at last got permission to erect after years of fighting the authorities. The market is a fantastic and vibrant place full of sights, sounds, smells and architecture that take you back for generations. It is a natural place to gravitate to if you are in that part of the City. On a recent visit I noticed high up on a wall outside the back of the market another, earlier memorial to the more than 300 victims of the fascist bombing. It was put up only a few years before the steel memorial and from the wording and placement looks like a grudging effort by the PP council to placate the campaigners. It didn't work and now those who died that day have a memorial that cannot be ignored.

El Faro anti aircraft positions update

Pleased to see that some of the smaller anti-aircraft positions up at EL Faro on the cliffs overlooking the Bay of Alicante are being refurbished. The third picture shows one of the overgrown positions before they were uncovered and dug out as in the second picture. I stumbled across two or three of these fortifications deep in the pine groves opposite the Republicant barracks and munitions dump (in picture one) a few years back when walking the area. Along with the two big gun batteries closer to the cliff these positions would have been used to try and take out the Condor Legion and Mussolini's aircraft as they launched bombing raids on civilian targets in Alicante and along the coast.

Inland to Albacete - home of the International Brigades

Heading inland from the Costa Blanca it is a relatively short journey on the High Speed train from the terminal at Alicante to Albacete, the original home of the International Brigades. Albacete is now a thoroughly modern city but a bit of walking and digging around and you can find some of the key sites associated with the areas history as the base for the Brigades. The Gran Hotel still stands proudly in the centre, and its architecture, albeit it with a branch of Barclays Bank now located on the ground floor, will have changed little from its days as the HQ for the IB. Head out west from the Gran and you will find the magnificent bullring which was the reporting centre for thousands of IB volunteers who made it by all forms of transport from all over the world to sign up for the International Brigades. Like the Gran Hotel, it appears to have changed very little. On the outskirts of Albacete stands the University campus, the home of a beautifully carved and worked memorial to the volunteers who came to this part of the Spanish interior to fight for freedom. I understand that many of the Brigade volunteers were billeted to villages around Albacete before being deployed around the country to offensive and defensive positions. I will be back to find out more.

On Olla Beach, Altea

Take a tram north out of the Lucheros terminal in the centre of Alicante and you get some fantastic views as it winds its way up the coast towards Bendidorm, change for Line 9 and it will connect you up to the route even further up the coast to Denia. Its not the swiftest journey and on the day I travelled there was a connecting bus part of the way but, as always in Spain, there was a bar close by for the wait and I was in no hurry. The trip to Olla just up from Altea was well worth it. One of the finest preserved bunkers of the Civil War's Mediterranean Wall and in amazing nick bearing in mind it is partly in the sea. Lovely bar cum restaraunt close by for a drop of tinto and a pincho of tortilla and it was off back for the winding journey south as the clouds gathered.