photo: Robert Choban…and the promenade
"No a la guerra!" (No to war!) was written on a piece of cardboard held by a woman surrounded by a group of like-minded women not far from the Promenade in Alicante. While we were saying goodbye, I thought about what Kori Udovički (whose father Lazar was a "Spanish fighter") had told me a few days earlier: "The Spanish experienced the horrors of the Civil War of 1936-1939 and are not easily drawn into new sufferings!" These days, Prime Minister Manuel Sánchez's stance on current world conflicts and crises is also an example of a principled and honorable attitude: The Kingdom Spain is against Russia's aggression against Ukraine, against the intervention in Venezuela, against the attempt to seize Greenland and against the war in the Gulf.
Speaking of the Spanish Civil War, Alicante was the last city loyal to the Republicans who were conquered by Franco's troops on April 1, 1939. Before that, on May 25, 1938, the city suffered heavily in the bombing of the Italian Aviazione Legionaria – 300 people died in that one day.
The last members of Spain's Republican government left the country from the port in this city before the Francoists ended the war and began their 36-year rule over the country. It is rumored that on March 28, 1939, just three days before the entry of the Francoists into the city, Archibald Dixon, the captain of the British ship SS Stanbrook, decided to board 2.638 republican soldiers, officials and members of their families under the carpet of German bombs. "No one stayed on the shore, as I promised!" said Dixon. The ship loaded with refugees from Alicante arrived in the port of Oran, in French Algeria, after 22 hours of sailing.
In a world engulfed in war and chaos, the scenes from the beach in Alicante seem almost unreal. Although Spain stayed away from the conflict, history did not spare it for the past two decades: terrorist attacks, waves of migrants from Africa and the World Economic Crisis of 2008. Namely, the Spanish, together with Portugal, Italy and Greece, were one of the PIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain) which, compared to the rest of Europe, endured the World Economic Crisis in 2008 the hardest.
None of that can be seen on the streets of Alicante this March: tourists and locals walk peacefully, there is no visible presence of migrants, shops and restaurants are full, there are almost no police on the streets... The prices of food and drinks in restaurants are 50% of those in Belgrade. My "paella & rioja index" says that the average prices of a portion of Spain's favorite rice dish and a bottle of red wine from the province of Rioja have not changed in the past 10 years. A portion of paella ranges from 14 to 17 euros, a bottle of Rioja wine from 17 to 22 euros.
A city the size of Novi Sad (in 2024, it had 358.608 inhabitants) is in tenth place in Spain when it comes to population.
As I watch Africans selling fake branded bags on the Explanada de España, the promenade along the beach, Manu Chao's lyrics ("I went to work in a city in the north, I left my old life behind somewhere between Ceuta and Gibraltar") run through my head. A song Clandestine (Illegal) is biographical for every modern migrant, especially for those who arrived in Europe from Africa by that route via Ceuta, the Spanish exclave on Moroccan soil that Manu Chao sings about.
The plane from Belgrade, in addition to tourists from Serbia, was also full of some new "cladestinas", those with blond hair and light skin. Namely, a large number of migrants from Russia and Ukraine go to Spain as their final destination via Belgrade. On the street leading to our hotel, I came across a bar closed with heavy metal shutters with Jesus painted on them. Above it is written that the Orthodox parish of St. Andrew and St. Nicholas. This is one of three Russian Orthodox churches in Alicante, a city where the history of the Russian diaspora has been traced since the end of the 19th century. It is believed that 16.000 Russians live in the entire province of Alicante today, many of whom have bought real estate in the past few years.
At every step, I meet traces of the city's rich history that goes back to the old century. The area is believed to have been continuously inhabited for the past 7.000 years. Some 1.000 years before Christ, the Greeks and Phoenicians started to establish their colonies and build fortifications on this coast. Above the city on the hill of Benacantil, intersected by wonderful paths for walking through vegetation and stones, rises the Fortress of Saint Barbara. The Moors built the first fort in that place during their rule of the Iberian Peninsula (from 711 to 1296).
You can also get to the fortress by taxi or small bus, but I recommend the easy 15-minute walk from the foot of the hill to the walls of St. Barbara. The fortress is beautifully preserved, restored and maintained, with several cafes and restaurants for refreshments, so it is always full of visitors.
Since 1954, and especially after the declaration of independence of Algeria, more than 30.000 members of the "pieds-noirs" population (Frenchmen and other Europeans who lived in Algeria from 1830 to 1962) settled in Alicante.
For a city that had a population of 101.000 in 1950, this was a great wave of immigration. In just 10 years, between the 1960 and 1970 censuses, Alicante grew by as much as 49% - from 121.832 to 181.550 inhabitants. Mass tourism started in Spain during the sixties of the 20th century during Franco's lifetime, so Alicante slowly transformed from a port and industrial city into a tourist destination.
The Co-Cathedral of St. Nicholas of Bari, built between 1613 and 1662, is an impressive building that, like the nearby Basilica of St. Mary, was built over a mosque from the Moorish period. This is often the case in this part of Spain and is easily noticeable in the architecture of those temples. The interior of the temple is spectacular, especially the view from the gallery and the Holy Communion Chapel, which is considered one of the finest examples of Spanish Baroque. The entrance fee is eight euros, they don't accept press ID, but - I didn't regret it.
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