Torre Vieja - in tribute to the Old Tower

221 years ago, today's resort in the southern Costa Blanca existed on the map of Spain as a defensive tower and two huts for soldiers, responsible for guarding the Spanish coast.

This was not easy, as the Mediterranean was in the hands of pirates if not from France or Italy, then from Turkey and Algeria. No coastal settlement was safe and each was vulnerable to looting, murder and kidnapping of its inhabitants, later sold as slaves. When King Philip III decided to expel more than 500,000 Moors from Spain to northern Africa, some of them joined the pirates. The king did not had a choice, he had to focus on coastal defense. Dozens of defensive towers were built from France to Cadiz and became part of a network of fortifications. One of them was precisely the tower in today's Torrevieja.

If enemy ships were spotted from one of them, a fire was lit, which was noticed by coastal defenders on the next tower. Such a notification system was capable of alerting all posts from Cadiz to the French border. This meant immediate readiness for defense.

The name of the settlement of Torrevieja appeared on the map of the country in 1803, when King Charles IV signed a decree, at the by virtue of which she was commissioned to oversee the mining of salt in nearby La Mata. It was then that Torrevieja began to grow. And this was not interrupted even by the tragic earthquake of 1829, when almost the entire town of the time disappeared from the face of the earth, 389 people died and 377 were seriously injured. That's also when the historic defense tower was destroyed. But in 1931, King Alfonso XIII granted municipal rights to the settlement, which officially took the name of Torrevieja, and through the efforts of its inhabitants the tower was rebuilt where it originally stood.

Today, the new-historic structure named Torre del Moro can be watch at the end of Avenida Alfred Nobel (on the side of La Mata).

In Torrevieja, it's also worth going to see the historic Church de La Inmaculada Concepcion located on calle Caballero de Rodas 29, right next to the Plaza de la Constitución, and the Monument to Mediterranean Cultures, the so-called "Las Columnas" located on Avenida de Los Marineros, at the end of Playa del Cura.

While in the area today, you can also visit the Polish restaurant POLKA located nearby, at calle Bergantin 4, which welcomes anyone longing for Polish home-style traditional cuisine, although it also offers delicacies of Spanish cuisine.