Casco Antiguo / Santa Cruz

Alicante's old town climbs the slope of the Benacantil, the hill crowned by the Castillo de Santa Bárbara 167 metres above the sea. The neighbourhood began as the Muslim medina of Al-Laqant, organised around the fortress after the Pact of Teodomiro in the early 8th century, complete with its own market, aljama community and several mosques. By the time Christian forces retook the area in the 13th century, the street plan already looked much as it does today: narrow lanes, staircases and tight corners that follow the shape of the rock, then enclosed by a wall running down from the castle.

That medieval layout is what's known today as the Barrio de Santa Cruz — whitewashed houses, flower pots on balconies and façades, and streets that are, in practice, flights of steps. It's not an easy walk with a pushchair or wheelchair, given the steep grade, but anyone willing to climb slowly ends up at some corner with a view of the Mediterranean or the rooftops of the rest of the old town.

At the quarter's lower edge, built over the site of one of those medieval mosques, stands the Basílica de Santa María, Alicante's oldest church still in active use, raised in Valencian Gothic between the 14th and 16th centuries. A little further down, the Concatedral de San Nicolás de Bari has anchored the centre of the old town since the 17th century, its blue dome visible from much of the neighbourhood.

The castle can be reached on foot from Santa Cruz or by lift from the beach nearby, and from its ramparts the 360-degree view takes in the harbour and, on clear days, the island of Tabarca. Close by, the Parc de l'Ereta steps down the hillside in a series of terraces, its Mediterranean planting a change of pace from the white façades and fortress stone. Between castle, basilica and park, the old town packs nearly a thousand years of layered history into a handful of streets, all of them uphill.