Guardamar del Segura
Guardamar del Segura municipality | ||
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Guardamar del Segura - Town Hall (ayuntamiento)
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coat of arms | Map of Spain | |
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Basic data | ||
Autonomous Community : | Valencia | |
Province : | Alicante | |
Coordinates | 38 ° 5 ′ N , 0 ° 39 ′ W | |
Height : | 25 msnm | |
Area : | 35.58 km² | |
Residents : | 15,348 (Jan 1, 2019) | |
Population density : | 431.37 inhabitants / km² | |
Postal code : | 03140 and 03149 (Almarjal, Moncayo and others) | |
Municipality number ( INE ): | 03076 | |
administration | ||
Website : | Guardamar del Segura |
Guardamar del Segura or Guardamar is a tranquil resort in the autonomous region of Valencia in Spain . Guardamar's trademarks are long, natural beaches and lush green spaces. The small town is located on the Costa Blanca in southeast Spain on the Mediterranean in the province of Alicante , in the local comarca Vega Baja del Segura or Vega Baja for short . The center of Guardamar del Segura is around 35 km from Alicante in the north and around 14 km from Torrevieja in the south.
The confluence of the Río Segura into the Mediterranean is located in the municipality . The place is known for its pine forests by the sea, which were planted at the beginning of the 20th century to curb the constant movement of the dunes near the coast. Since 2010, the most important local political issue has been the Spanish Coastal Protection Act , the implementation of which affects hundreds of property owners in Guardamar.
population
Guardamar officially has 15,348 inhabitants (January 1, 2019) but this number is estimated to rise to 45,000 during Easter, July and August, when the Spaniards (mainly Madrid) who own holiday apartments in town spend their holidays there.
In addition to the Spaniards, there are significant groups of European residents, mainly British, but also Germans, Russians, Moroccans and Scandinavians (more Norwegians than Swedes).
climate
The Costa Blanca , which Guardamar is one of, has a mild Mediterranean climate. The coastal region is delimited from central Spain by the Betic Cordillera and thus represents the driest area of the Iberian Peninsula. The entire landscape and vegetation clearly shows African features. The sea temperature is 28 degrees in summer, the daytime temperatures are around 30 degrees in summer and 16 to 18 degrees in winter. Guardamar's coastal location also guarantees a welcome sea breeze in summer, while in the hinterland, in the cities of Orihuela and Murcia, there is great heat during the day, which drives the residents to the summer freshness of the coastal towns.
geography
beaches
The fine sandy, eleven kilometer long beach of Guardamar is considered one of the most beautiful in Spain, not least because of the long pine forest that runs parallel to it. From north to south there are the following beaches:
- Los Tusales , the northernmost beach begins on the southern border of Elche . It is cut off from the rest of the municipality by the mouth of the Segura. It is a nudist beach.
- Los Viveros
- Babilonia
- Centro , the "Playa Centro" is a sandy beach bordered by the "Playa de Babilonia" in the north and the "Playa de la Roqueta" in the south. Playa Centro has a length of around 2450 m and is 30 m wide. It is located in an urban environment and can be easily reached by roads. It has a boardwalk. This beach has been awarded the blue flag since 1987.
- La Roqueta , sandy beach bordered by the “Play Centro” in the north and “Playa el Moncayo” in the south. The beach is 1180 m long and 35 m wide. It is located in an urban environment and is easily accessible via roads. It has disabled access. It has been awarded the blue flag since 1987.
- Moncayo , around 1460 m long sandy beach with direct access to the 'Hotel Playas de Guardamar'.
- Campo , around 1200 m long.
- Las Ortigas . Sandy beach bordering the municipality of Torrevieja in the south .
Mouth of the Segura
The Segura River flows into the Mediterranean in the municipality of Guardamar .
The Segura Water Management Office (CHS) discovered specimens of the Asian conch there in 2014. As an invasive species, the Asian cup mussel, Latin Corbicula fluminea , represents a threat to native species. The intruder into the Segura ecosystem is particularly robust and adaptable.
The pine forests of the "Pinada de Guardamar"
Guardamar is particularly known for its Pinada de Guardamar in the dune landscape. The Pinada is a large pine plantation from the beginning of the 20th century that stopped the migration of the sand dunes on the beach. The forest on the coast had been cut down since the 18th century. The wood was used, among other things, for warships. The deforestation was gradual. The consequences were huge in the 19th century. A wave of sand grew from the bottom of the coast and the shifting dunes soon engulfed Guardamar's first houses. The consequence of human intervention in nature was an increasing erosion of the soil, which was further promoted by the alluvial sand of the Segura estuary and the strong east winds. Over the centuries the sand eventually formed dunes that were so high that from 1896 onwards they put the northern parts of the village in danger. The city would have ended as silted up Atlantis had it not been for civil engineer Franco Mira y Botella, a well-known Spanish landscape engineer from the Alicante region. In an arduous project he had trees planted to protect the village from 1897 and the dunes fortified with underground walls. The majority of the Pinada de Guardamar, which today comprises 800 hectares of dunes, was reforested with pines, palms, cypresses and eucalyptus trees to prevent the steady penetration of the sand dunes. The forest was the salvation of today's city. Today it is considered to be their most precious legacy and trademark.
The pinada made Guardamar a popular destination on the southern Costa Blanca . Nowhere else between Alicante and Cartagena can such long and natural dune landscapes be hiked on long walks. The dunes are now in a nature reserve. It is mainly two large parks that make the community so attractive. The green spaces Parque Alfonso XII. and Parque Reina Sofia attract thousands of visitors year after year - for hikes, picnics in the countryside, jogging or walking.
Townscape
Guardamar used to be a fishing and farming village. The townscape today is mainly characterized by moderately built five- to six-story houses, which is to be seen as a reluctance to develop in relation to the neighboring municipality of Torrevieja, which is often referred to as a “concrete desert”. However, high-rise buildings have recently been built in the north of the municipality, which meanwhile also have a negative impact on the townscape.
Guardamar del Segura is the southernmost place in Spain where Catalan is spoken.
Pinada from Guardamar
The Pinada is a forest area with an extension of 800 hectares. It extends on former shifting dunes that were fortified at the beginning of the 20th century by growing different types of plants, such as pines, palms, cypresses and eucalyptus trees. The planting project began in 1900 and ended in 1930. Since then, the pinada has appeared in its current form in the immediate vicinity of the sea. The dunes are a product of marine sediments, the Segura River and the east wind. Today the Pinada is divided into two parks, one of which is Park Alfonso XII. and the other park is called Queen Sofia. The parks stretch between the city center and the beaches of “Babilonia” and “Los Viveros”.
There has always been a dense pine forest in the municipality. But in the 18th century this pine forest was cut down for the construction of warships without being recultivated. The devastation was promoted by the alluvial sand of the Segura estuary, which was washed up again from the sea. The wind formed dunes out of this sand, which penetrated the northern part of the village from 1896 and threatened the houses and gardens.
history
Like many regions along the Mediterranean coast, the city has been heavily influenced over the centuries by a wide variety of seafaring cultures. In the municipality of Guardamar del Segura there have been various archaeological finds that suggest a Phoenician and later Iberian settlement. There was also an Islamic rabat, an Islamic border fortification.
Phoenicians
The Phoenician colony of Alonis is considered to be the oldest settlement in Guardamar and is particularly rich in archaeological finds. The remains of this Phoenician port city, still visible today, date from the 8th century BC. A wall from the time of the Phoenicians was found in the archaeological site of La Fonteta. This was four meters high and ran parallel to the coastline. Its construction is dated to the seventh century BC. The bricks are in incomparably good condition. In some you can even see fingerprints. The Phoenicians came from the Middle East (today's Palestine, Lebanon) and settled the Spanish coast before the Romans.
Iberians
An important find from the Iberian period is the famous Dama de Guardamar . The archaeological museum shows the excavations of the area in a permanent exhibition and as its showpiece the more than 2,300 year old "Dama de Guardamar". The Iberian bust was discovered in 1987.
Arabs
Later the Arabs called the place وادالرمل "Guad-al-ramal" ("Sand River"), from which the current name probably derives. In Spanish, “guardar” means “to keep safe” and “mar” means “sea”, which is another explanation for today's place name.
In the dunes of Guardamar del Segura is the first and oldest site of an Islamic ribat in Spain, an Arab border fortification in the immediate vicinity of the coast. These are the archaeological sites of La Fonteta and La Rabita. The fortresses, of which only the foundation walls remain today, date from the 10th century AD and were discovered in the 1980s. The University of Alicante is currently planning an exhibition project there to make the finds accessible to the public. In ancient times, not only Arab soldiers ready to fight lived in the fortress, but also Islamic scholars who gave the fighters moral support. The architecture of La Rabita shows monk cells on the lowest floor of the fortress, while a mosque with the towering tower was housed on the second floor. Together with the ribat from Sousse in Tunisia, La Rabita is the oldest of its kind in the Mediterranean.
Christian reconquest
Between 1244 and 1248 Alfonso X the Wise conquered the area around Guardamar for the Crown of Castile , although the Muslim population was not initially expelled. However, a revolt by the King of Murcia in 1264 resulted in the expulsion of the Moriscos in retaliation . A few years later, in 1277, King Alfonso X founded the Christian Guardamar del Segura on the site of today's "Castillo" on the castle hill. The king founded it as an independent community with the same government laws and privileges ( fueros ) as the city of Alicante and brought the first settlers from Catalonia and Valencia to the Levant coast as thanks for their resistance against the Moors. For this reason Guardamar is still one of the southernmost cities in which Valencian is sometimes spoken.
19th century
Constitution of 1812
At the beginning of the 19th century, a small group occupied the place and proclaimed the constitution of 1812 , led by the Bazán brothers. The expectation that the entire Vega Baja would rise up against Fernando VII was disappointed.
Earthquake 1829
On March 21, 1829, a severe earthquake claimed numerous lives. It had a magnitude of 6.6 on the Richter scale and resulted in 389 deaths in the comarca of Vega Baja del Segura . It destroyed more than 2000 houses in the comarca. Over 3000 people were homeless in the Comarca Vega Baja at that time. The earthquake completely destroyed the medieval town on the castle hill in Guardamar. The Moorish Castillo de Guardamar, the castle complex from the 14th century, and the much larger lower town center with its Gothic city wall from the 16th century were almost completely destroyed. The place had to be completely redesigned and rebuilt from scratch below the castle hill. The new Guardamar was planned in the neoclassical city style (straight streets in a vertical north-south orientation and three symmetrical squares). The new construction of the houses should withstand future earthquakes, so that one built low houses with large inner courtyards. The old town was used as a quarry for the new Guardamar. Guardamar was in the 19th century, due to its orthogonal arrangement, like modern Japan of our time, as particularly earthquake-proof. With the exception of the city's architectural planning and the old castle ruins, there are hardly any traces of the great earthquake.
20th century
At the beginning of the 20th century, pine trees were planted to prevent the sand dunes from penetrating. The sand dunes invaded the place and threatened to bury the houses. The first tourists came to Guardamar in the 1950s. Tourism is the most important economic factor today.
Attractions
- Torreta de Guardamar , a US military transmission mast, which is said to be the second largest structure in the European Union with a height of 370 m.
- The castle or the Castillo de Guardamar . The upper part of the castle, which was of Arab origin, was totally destroyed by the great earthquake of 1829. The much larger lower part is surrounded by a Gothic city wall, which was considerably redesigned in the 16th century. Guardamar was in this lower part until the great earthquake. It was then rebuilt in its current location.
The castle with its 12,000 m² area is to be renovated from 2019 at a cost of 1.2 million euros. It is one of the few major historical and cultural monuments in Vega Baja County . The castle complex is considered to be the best "mirador", ie a lookout point with panoramas of the Huertas of the Vega Baja, the city and the sea. The castle has only been systematically archaeologically developed since 1982. The first signs of use point to the Phoenicians as far back as the eighth century BC. The Iberians even created a religious place of worship there, in which in turn remains from the Islamic period can be found. In the early Middle Ages, Christian rulers built their castle on it, primarily as a warning against the Moorish Spaniards who had converted to pirates. But the area was also the interface where the Castilian and Aragonese royal troops faced each other. The renaissance wall is to be made visible again in the course of the renovations.
language
The municipality of Guardamars is the southernmost where Valencià is spoken (a dialect of Catalan ). This dialect has official status next to Castellano. Officially, 63.8% of the population speak Valencià and 75.5% are able to read Valencià .
Culture
Museums
The archaeological museum is located in the old town and shows the excavations in the area around Guardamar in a permanent exhibition. The showpiece is the one from the 4th century BC. Dama de Guardamar originating in BC .
Festivals
- Moors and Christians ("Moros y Cristianos"): As in most places on the Costa Blanca, Guardamar celebrates the victory of the Christians over the Moors in the last two weeks of July.
- The local patronage festival is celebrated every year on October 7th in memory of the Virgen del Rosario .
economy
Tourism is currently the most important industry. Construction and agriculture are also important. The cultivation of " Ñora " is traditional and typical for Guardamar. Fishing for shrimp and eel was traditional for a long time, but is now dying out. The industry is limited to a car battery factory in the north of the town.
Personalities
- Vicente Ramos Pérez , historian, philosopher and politician (1919–2011)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cifras oficiales de población resultantes de la revisión del Padrón municipal a 1 de enero . Population statistics from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (population update).