Some places are so beautiful that they leave you speechless. The Beguinage is just such a place. This is where the beguines — emancipated women who lived pious and chaste lives without taking holy orders — once lived together in harmony. This walled oasis of religious peace, with its delightful inner garden, wind-twisted trees and white-painted gables, can charm even the most cynical of souls with its deafening silence.

This Renaissance palace, still inhabited by the 12th Marquis of Fronteira, is shown to the public through guided tours. It was built as a hunting pavilion in 1670 for the first Marquis of Fronteira — one of the most powerful families in Portugal.

This building contains some modernist features and was built between 1911 and 1912 under the management of Juan Vidal Ramos over Balmes Square, over which there was still a part of the 18th century wall. With its rectangular shape, the Market mimics the layout of a basilica, with a circular appendix on the South-west side covered by a semispherical dome called La Rotonda (the roundabout). The building is split into two floors, one of which is a semi-basement due to the irregular surrounding streets. The front of the building was designed by Enrique Sánchez Sedeño and is presided by an impressive staircase surrounded by two emerging figures with decorative features. On 25th May 1938, the Mercado Central was hit during the worst bombing suffered by the city of Alicante during the Spanish Civil War, which resulted in 300 civilian victims. The Italian air force was responsible for that tragedy. All kinds of high-quality products can be bought at the Market, especially local fish and seafood, vegetables and fruit, as well as other typical local products. That is why the city’s top restaurants source their food from the Mercado Central.