Castillo de Santa Barbara, Alicante Spain

We spent the day again with Raphael and Pepi and their family - we went to the Castillo de Santa Barbara, which is a castle fortress located on the hill high above the city of Alicanta and provides a view of the entire bay of Alicante, which is exactly what you need in a castle fortress. Here is our group at the Castillo.

 The castle dates back to the 9th century, when it was controlled my the Moors, as was much of Spain.

Above are the ruins of the chapel area of the castle.  The arches that held the dome are still standing.

Check out this view along the top of one of the fortress walls, which are incredibly thick - 12 feet in some places.

 The castillo has changed hands many times over the years, depending on who had conquered the area most recently.  There are Moorish, Spanish and Roman influences  in the remaining buildings. Much of it has disintegrated and fallen down, but it is easy to see where everything once stood.

There is even a dungeon area that is now open to the sun and air, pictured above with Gary and Raphael standing on the dungeon floor There were what looked like carved graffiti in the stones of the floor.  Turns out that's exactly what it was, and it was carved by the prisoners held in the dungeon over hundreds of years.

The views from the castillo are incredible!  You can see 360 degrees - the entire city of Alicante, the city of Benidorm to the north, the entire bay of Alicante and out to the mountains on the west.

You can also see the Plaza de Tores, or bullring in the center of Alicante.

After we left the Castillo we went back to Raphael and Pepi's apartment by the beach for a family birthday party.  They had all their kids and grandkids who were in the area come for a big dinner and a party to celebrate five different birthdays coming up in the family.

 Luis, who is married to Raphael's daughter Raquel, cooked an ENORMOUS paella!  It took two men to lift the paella pan from the special stove that it cooks on.

We had great food, great company (several of the kids and grandkids speak English so I had someone to talk to) and a really fun  time.  After the Feliz Cumpleaneos were sung, the candles blown out and the cake eaten they had a pinata for the kids.  They don't smack it with a stick the way we do, they have little strings attached to the bottom of the pinata and each kid pulls hard on the string and it opens the bottom of the pinata and the candy falls out

Alex, one of Raphael's grandkids dove onto a pile of candy and wouldn't move!

After the party, several of the family members had to go home, but a bunch of us went down to the Alicante port and walked around the beachfront area.  We saw an amazing cathedral there