Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción

The Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción was built in Jijona between the late 16th and early 17th centuries, in Renaissance style. It is the town’s main parish church, with a square stone bell tower visible from much of the historic centre.

A bell tower topped in diamonds

The building’s most distinctive feature is the top of the bell tower: a cap covered in glazed flat tiles in green and white, arranged in diamond patterns, an unusual decorative solution for religious buildings in this part of the province. Inside, six bells survive, three of them Gothic, dated 1463 and 1500, among the oldest in Alicante province.

The bell tower also holds one of the largest collections of Gothic-era bells in the Comunitat Valenciana: only two other towns in the region keep more bells from that period. From the square in front of the church, the silhouette of the Torre Grossa stands out on the hill above the town, a familiar view in Jijona.

The church sits on the town’s main street, on the flat ground below the hill the castle occupies, which is why its bell tower has long served as a landmark for finding the way through the older part of town.

The main altar was remodelled in the late 18th century, and a fire in 1971 destroyed much of that decoration; the artist Octavio Vicent later restored it, so the interior mixes original Renaissance elements with 20th-century work.

Admission is free, subject to service hours. The church is a short walk from the Museo del Turrón and the Forn del Raval de la Peñita, making it easy to combine with the rest of the town’s heritage in one morning, before climbing up to the Castillo de la Torre Grossa.