Parc d'El Palmeral

Parque El Palmeral occupies the former grounds of El Carmen, a farming estate that had close to 7,000 palm trees by the late 19th century, when it belonged first to Mariano Roca de Togores and later to Juan José Soler. It was on this same estate that painter Joaquín Sorolla set his painting "El Palmeral," a scene that gives a sense of what the area looked like before Alicante's urban growth reached it. Over the following decades the number of palms fell to the roughly 2,000 that grow in the park today, across several species.

In the 1990s, the city council ran a competition to turn the plot into a public park, won by architect Juan Antonio Espejel Díez; landscape engineer Ignacio Lloret Lloret handled the planting design that followed. The new Parque El Palmeral opened to the public in 1997, with its gazebo inaugurated that same October. Set at the southern edge of the city, facing the sea, the park is laid out in a recreational half and a more social one, with waterfalls, ponds, wooden footbridges and paths winding between the palms in a Mediterranean-style layout.

A park for walking

El Palmeral works as a green lung on the south side of Alicante, with enough shade to make it especially comfortable during the hottest months. It pairs well with a visit to Parque de la Ereta on the other side of the city, or a walk along the Explanada de España — both listed alongside other green spaces in the guide to Alicante's parks and gardens.