Alcoy

The rifles crack at dawn. Not hunters, but townsfolk in medieval costume firing muskets down Carrer Sant Nicolau to wake the neighbours. By 08:00 the street resembles a living history book: Moors in silk turbans, Christian knights clanking in chain-mail, brass bands competing for elbow-room outside the bakery. This is 22 April in Alcoy, and the rest of the year feels like an afterthought.

That single explosive morning explains why more than 60,000 visitors squeeze into a town of 59,000, book hotel rooms a year ahead, and happily pay €4 for a plastic cup of beer. Miss the fiesta and you will still find a serious provincial city folded into a ravine, 45 minutes inland from the Costa Blanca but psychologically much farther away. The nearest beach is 40 km distant; the nearest Burger King, mercifully, does not exist.

A City Carved by Water and Industry

Alcoy sits at 562 m above sea level, trapped between two limestone gorges. The Riquer and Molinar ravines meet in the centre like a pair of pincers, forcing streets to zig-zag and bridges to multiply. Stone arches – San Jorge, María Cristina, Arenal – leap across the void, built by textile magnates who needed quick access to mills on both sides. Walk the old town and you are forever climbing or descending; wear rubber soles, not espadrilles.

The same water that carved the gorges once drove looms and dye-works. From 1800 to 1960 Alcoy produced most of Spain’s blankets, uniforms and pocket linings. When global competition shut the factories, the city kept the chimneys and turned them into flats, galleries and, in one case, a rather good contemporary-art centre. Brickwork painted ox-blood red, ceramic friezes of spinning wheels, iron fire-escapes bolted to façades – the industrial past is too heavy to gentrify, so it simply lingers.

Modernist architects followed the money. Timoteo Briet’s Círculo Industrial (1909) rises in striped stone and stained glass, part gentlemen’s club, part palace. Around the corner the Casa del Pavo – House of the Turkey – wriggles with floral mosaics and a bronze bird on the roof. Knock on the door during office hours; staff at the tourist desk hand out a free map and will, if they are quiet, let you climb the marble staircase for nothing.

Bell-Towers and Vultures

Santa María’s Baroque tower charges 200 steps to a viewing gallery that sways slightly in high wind. From the top the city looks like a green trough with toy roofs: slate, terracotta and the occasional turquoise pool belonging to a 19th-century textile baron. On clear winter days you can pick out the antennas of Benidorm 50 km away; more often the view stops at the wall of Aleppo pines guarding the Font Roja natural park.

Font Roja begins where the suburbs end. A 10-minute drive on the CV-775 brings you to the visitor centre, where toilets are spotless and maps cost €1. The easiest path (PR-CV 50) climbs 3.2 km to a 14th-century hermitage, gaining 290 m. Slow walkers budget 90 minutes up, one hour down. Griffon vultures circle overhead; if you are lucky a peregrine cuts between the thermals. In October the maple leaves turn butter-yellow against the otherwise evergreen slopes – the closest thing Alcoy has to autumn colour.

Mountain weather is fickle. Summer days can hit 38 °C in the valley but drop to 25 °C on the ridge; in January the thermometer reads 5 °C at midday and -2 °C after dark. Bring a fleece even in May, especially if you plan to stay for the evening parade.

Menus without Translations

Lunch starts at 14:00 sharp. Most restaurants close again by 16:30 and won’t reopen until 20:30, so schedule museum visits around stomachs. Traditional dishes are mountain food: thick gazpacho (not the cold Andalusian soup but a gamey stew of rabbit and snails), rice with chard and beans, and pericana – salt-cod shredded into sweet red peppers, served warm with plenty of bread. Vegetarians survive on escalivada (roasted aubergine and pepper) and the local almond tart called coca boba.

For a set menu that won’t terrify picky eaters, head to L’Amagatall on Carrer Sant Llorenç. The weekday menú del día costs €23 and changes with the market: perhaps pumpkin cream, hake in saffron, and fig cake. Staff speak enough English to explain what “gamba blanca” means and will swap in vegan options if you ask nicely. Book ahead at weekends; Alcoyanos treat lunch as a family summit.

What You Miss When the Guns are Silent

The April fiesta is magnificent, but it is also impossible. Hotel prices triple, taxis are mythical, and sleep is theoretical. Visit in March instead and you can wander the same streets in peace, though you will need imagination. The Museu Alcoià de la Festa, housed in a former convent, supplies the soundtrack: mannequins wear 200-year-old silk uniforms, loudspeakers blast marching bands, and a 15-minute video recreates the final day’s battle in Plaza de España. Admission is €3; English audioguide included.

Other months offer quieter calendar markers. On 5 January the Three Kings descend the façades of the old town by rope – Spain’s oldest Epiphany parade, running since 1885. July brings open-air screenings of cult horror films thanks to the Fantàstic festival crew from Catalonia. Expect zombie make-up workshops in the park and late-night bars serving black vodka.

Getting There, Getting Lost

Alcoy has no commercial airport. Fly to Alicante, pick up a hire car, and take the A-7 inland for 45 minutes. The last 10 km twist through citrus groves; lorries crawl uphill, so relax and enjoy the scent of blossom in April. Trains run twice daily from Alicante’s terminal on the narrow-gauge line to Alcoy’s art-nouveau station, journey time 1 h 20 min, €7.35 each way. Buses are faster (1 h) and more frequent, but the railway is prettier.

Once inside the city, park on the ring-road – Passeig de Cervantes is free and shaded by plane trees – and walk. The historic core is roughly one kilometre across; every street tilts. Wear shoes with grip; cobbles polished by centuries of processions are slippery when it rains, which happens about 40 days a year, usually in spring.

The Honest Verdict

Alcoy rewards curiosity more than bucket-list ambition. If you want beaches, nightlife and English menus, stay on the coast. If you want a town where waiters still apologise for their poor English rather than the other way round, climb the 562 m and arrive with an appetite. Come for the fiesta if you enjoy crowds, gunpowder and €200 hotel rooms. Come any other time for vultures, modernist brickwork and a bowl of gazpacho that tastes of rosemary and wild boar. Either way, bring earplugs – the bells of Santa María ring every quarter-hour, and they do not care about your hangover.