Alicante combines striking views across the bay with a long history of fortifications and urban development. Museums explore modern art, The Ocean Race sailing regatta and archaeological periods. There are also trails through natural areas and urban districts, as well as Tabarca’s marine environment. This lets you choose different focuses for your stay without reducing the city to a single attraction.
Castle and history on Benacantil
Castillo de Santa Bárbara stands on Benacantil, a 166-metre-high mountain by the sea. From there, you can see Alicante Bay and the inland areas nearby. The present-day fortress dates back to the end of the 9th century, during Muslim rule. The slopes also contain Bronze Age remains and Iberian and Roman finds. The history of this site therefore reaches further back than the fortress itself.
Access to the mountain also has its own architectural dimension: two lifts run inside Benacantil over a distance of 142.70 metres. A 204.83-metre-long tunnel leads to them from Avenida de Jovellanos, opposite Playa del Postiguet beach. The lifts have opened; check their current operating status before your visit.
Art, regatta and archaeology
In the historic centre, opposite the Basilica of Santa María, is the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Alicante (MACA). The museum includes Casa de La Asegurada, the city’s oldest civil building. It was built in 1685 as a granary. MACA’s collections cover major movements in 20th-century art and include, among other things, paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints. The architectural history and art of the past century offer distinct perspectives side by side here.
The Museo The Ocean Race offers a different focus: it is the world’s only museum dedicated to The Ocean Race sailing regatta. Its interactive exhibitions cover more than 50 years of regatta history and developments in nautical technology. Audiovisual installations, games and models shape the displays; individual exhibition elements may change. Check the current visitor programme before your trip.
The permanent exhibition at the Museo Arqueológico Provincial de Alicante (MARQ) spans a period from prehistory through the Iberian and Roman cultures and the Middle Ages to the modern and contemporary eras. Alongside these periods, it also explores archaeological methods: galleries on field, urban and underwater archaeology explain how different sites are investigated. Staged displays, audiovisual media and interactive presentations introduce these areas of work. It is advisable to check the current visitor regulations when planning your visit.
Marine nature and trails through Alicante
Tabarca adds an excursion focused on the marine environment to the city’s cultural themes. The waters are notable for their great clarity, rich biological communities and Posidonia oceanica seagrass meadows. This puts the natural environment at the centre of attention, clearly setting it apart from Alicante’s stories of fortifications and museums.
There are also opportunities to explore natural areas and urban districts on foot within Alicante. The city has a network of urban routes and trails spanning almost 50 kilometres. This figure describes the network as a whole, not a single route. The individual trails are described as easy and range from 2 to 6 kilometres in length. This makes it possible to choose between different route lengths rather than treating the entire network as one tour.
For planning what to see, Alicante can be organised by interest: the fortress and archaeological finds reach far into the past; MACA and MARQ offer distinct cultural highlights; and the Museo The Ocean Race focuses on sailing and nautical technology. Trails through urban and natural areas, along with Tabarca’s marine environment, add other perspectives on the surrounding area.
Discover more destinations: El Moralet, Santa Faz, Monnegre, Beniardá, Forna, El Bacarot, Granja De Rocamora, La Mandarina.
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