Village
Alcoi is the capital of the Alcoià comarca, in the province of Alicante, known as the “city of bridges” for the many bridges spanning the ravines that cross its urban centre, formed by the Riquer, Benisaidó and Molinar rivers, tributaries of the Serpis. After the Industrial Revolution it became an important textile, metalworking and paper-making centre, and today it is one of the main hubs of Modernisme in Spain, included in the European Route of Modernisme. The city, which stands at 561 metres above sea level surrounded by the sierras of Mariola, la Serreta and the Carrascal de la Fuente Roja, has almost 20,000 hectares of its surroundings protected as natural parks. With 61,468 inhabitants (INE 2025), it is one of the most populous cities in the Valencian Community.
Monument
The modernisme of Alcoi is chiefly the work of two architects: Vicente Pascual Pastor, of an exuberant, French-influenced style, and Timoteo Briet Montaud, with geometric lines close to the Viennese Secession; between them they raised some sixty modernista buildings financed by the industrial bourgeoisie. Notable are Casa Laporta (1904), Alcoi's first modernista work, Casa del Pavo (1908-1909) and the Círculo Industrial (1911). The painters Fernando Cabrera Cantó and Francisco Laporta Valor worked on the façades, along with the sculptor Lorenzo Ridaura Gosálbez, author of several works in the city's cemetery. Alcoi joined the European Route of Modernism in 2010, with a commemorative plaque at the town hall since 2017.
Nature
The Carrascal de la Font Roja Natural Park, between the municipalities of Alcoi and Ibi, in the comarca of L'Alcoià, was declared on 13 April 1987 by the Valencian Generalitat and covers 2,298 hectares. Its highest point is the summit of the Sierra de Menachaor, at 1,356 metres. Above 1,250 metres grows a deciduous forest of Portuguese oak, ash, maple, yew and whitebeam, while elsewhere holm oak forest predominates, with plantations of Aleppo pine. Notable fauna includes the Bonelli's eagle, the peregrine falcon, the eagle owl and the griffon vulture, as well as wild boar, genets and wildcats. In the 18th century the snow trade was carried on there, of which several snow wells remain.
Activity
A festival of Alcoy depicting the struggle between the Muslim and Christian sides, declared of Interés Turístico Internacional (Spain's highest official tourism designation) since 1980 and intangible Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) since 2019. Tradition places its origin in the battle of Alcoy of 1276, in which the city's Christian inhabitants, aided by around 200 knights from various comarcas, faced the Benimerin troops of the chieftain Al-Azraq; according to legend, at the decisive moment Saint George appeared on horseback above the walls, and since then he has been the city's patron saint, celebrated on 23 April. Recent research qualifies this chronology and places the actual clash on 5 May of that year. The earliest references to the festival date from 1511, and in 1552 the use of the arquebus was incorporated.
Monument
The first public bridge in Alcoi, built in 1838, is one of the more than 30 bridges that give the city its nickname, 'city of bridges'. The works, commissioned from municipal architect Juan Carbonell, began in 1830; after suffering damage from torrential rains, they were continued by Manuel Fornés and José Serrano. It crosses the Barchell river, also called the Riquer, measuring 87.30 metres long, 15.75 wide and 27.50 high: it is a masonry structure, with stone piers, cast-iron railings and lamp posts, pointed side arches and a central round arch. It is named after María Cristina de Borbón-Dos Sicilias, fourth wife of Ferdinand VII, although it is popularly known as the bridge of Cervantes, after the promenade dedicated to the writer that has run alongside it since 1905.
Monument
Viaduct of Alcoi over the Molinar river, a metal structure inaugurated in 1907, a technological revolution for its time. It was built between 1901 and 1907 to a design by engineer Próspero Lafarga Navarro, with input from local engineer Enrique Vilaplana Juliá, and was dedicated to José Canalejas, a member of parliament for Alcoy. The structure, 200 metres long and 35 metres high above the riverbed, is made up of three piers and two steel abutments (352 tonnes) and is considered one of the finest works of Valencian Modernisme. It connects the town centre with the Viaducto quarter and the road to Callosa de Ensarriá. In the 1980s architect Vicente Vidal restored it, widening the roadway and replacing part of the original Eiffel-type metal structure.
Monument
The Sant Jordi bridge, in Alcoi (Alicante), built between 1925 and 1931 and inaugurated on 26 March of that year to link the city's old quarter with the Horta Major extension. The work of architect Víctor Eusa with engineers Carmelo Monzón and Vicente Redón, it spans the bed of the Riquer river with a length of 245 metres and a height of 45.40 metres. Built in reinforced concrete with decorative elements in concrete and iron, its horizontal deck rests on piers with three pairs of parabolic arches and ornamental railings, in a Valencian Art Deco style of geometric lines close to Dutch Expressionism.
Monument
A museum housed in a Renaissance palace built between 1572 and 1584, with collections of Neolithic pottery and Iberian inscriptions on lead. It takes its name from the Alcoy-born archaeologist Camilo Visedo Moltó (1876-1958), who focused his studies on the recent Prehistory and Iberian period of the Alcoy area and discovered the La Serreta site, where he worked fifteen campaigns from 1920 onwards, finding terracotta votive offerings from an Iberian and Roman sanctuary and texts in the Greco-Iberian alphabet on lead sheets, dating from the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. He donated his archaeological and palaeontological collections to the museum, of which he was the creator and first curator between 1945 and 1958, and which later took his name.
Monument
The church of the Santo Sepulcro, in Alcoi, is the only example of old religious architecture preserved in the city, as all the others were destroyed in 1936. It is a Baroque temple built between 1596 and 1598 by master builders Baltasar García, Honorato de Onteniente and Baptista Balfago, with a Latin-cross plan, a nave of three bays and an elliptical dome on pendentives over the crossing. At the foot of the nave is the raised choir, enclosed by a lattice screen, for the Discalced Augustinian nuns of the convent. It preserves in a side chapel the relics of the miracle of the Sagrado Copón, stolen and found intact in 1568, and a replica of the Holy Shroud donated by Juan Luis de Alzamora, secretary to Juan de Austria; the side facade is the work of Vicente Valls Gadea, dating from 1925.
Monument
A museum dedicated to the Moors and Christians festival and the Three Kings' Parade of Alcoi, created by the Asociación de Sant Jordi, the body that organises the Alcoi festivities and which dates back to the 18th century. The museum was decided upon in 2004 and opened in 2006 in the Casal de Sant Jordi, a 17th-century building that belonged to the noble Jordá and Merita families and which the association acquired and restored in 1954. Spread over a semi-basement and three floors, it brings together festival posters dating from 1876, costumes donated by captains and standard-bearers of the twenty-eight filaes, music and the historical evolution of festival dress. It is located on Sant Miquel street.
Curiosity
Alcoi has more than 30 bridges owing to the numerous rivers, ravines and canyons that cross the city, which is why it is also known as the city of the three rivers. It is crossed by the Riquer, Benisaidó and Molinar rivers, tributaries of the Serpis, on a mountainous and irregular terrain that made it necessary to build bridges to cross the many ravines. Among the best known are the puente de San Jorge, the one of Cristina, which separates neighbourhoods of the urban centre, the one of San Roque, next to the barrio de Santa Rosa, and the one of Pechina, in the Eixample.
Monument
The Iberian sites of La Serreta and El Puig are located in the municipal district of Alcoi, on the boundary with Penàguila. La Serreta, discovered in 1917 by Camil Visedo and declared a historic-artistic monument in 1931, combines a settlement and a sanctuary, with the remains of quadrangular houses laid out in long rows, occupied from the early and full Iberian period into Roman times; it was re-excavated by Visedo himself in the 1950s and by Miquel Tarradell in the 1960s. Its finds include six lead sheets written in the Graeco-Iberian alphabet, numerous Iberian terracotta votive offerings, Iberian pottery and imported Greek, Punic and Campanian ware, and a falcata with a decorated hilt from tomb 53. The materials are kept in the Camil Visedo Archaeological Museum of Alcoi.
Monument
Former textile factory of Alcoi, also known as la casa de la Bolla, testimony to the historic importance of cloth manufacturing in the city. After the War of the Spanish Succession (1705-1707), in which Alcoi had backed the losing side, King Philip V granted it privileges as part of the policy of economic revival of the city. The building was refurbished in 1890 by the architect Vicente Pascual Pastor, as part of the successive adaptations that accompanied the development of the local textile industry.
Nature
The Vía Verde del Serpis is a project that makes use of the route of the old Alcoy-Gandía railway, built in 1892 and closed in 1969, whose creation is being promoted by the municipalities along its course; in 2020 the Generalitat Valenciana put out to tender the construction of a first 28-kilometre stretch between Muro de Alcoy and Villalonga. The old railway line was 53 kilometres long, with seven tunnels and twelve bridges, and ran from Alcoi to the port of Gandía through the comarcas of the Hoya de Alcoy, the Comtat de Cocentaina and la Safor. For much of its route it runs alongside the Serpis river, linking the Sierra de Mariola nature reserve with the Mediterranean Sea.
Curiosity
In July 1873, during the First Republic, Alcoi experienced an anarchist uprising known as the Petroleum Revolution, in which the workers took control of the city for four days.
Activity
The Cabalgata de Reyes Magos of Alcoy, held every 5 January, is considered the oldest in Spain -ahead of those of Igualada, from 1895, and San Vicente dels Horts, from 1896- and has been declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico Nacional (Spain's national festival-of-tourist-interest designation). Its forerunner dates back to the mid-19th century, with the figure of the Tío Píam, who walked the streets with the children awaiting the arrival of the Kings; the first documented parade dates from 1866, although it was not held continuously until 1885. It began as a charitable event organised by the society El Panerot, which visited the city's hospital and handed out gifts to the neediest children. Since 1970 the Asociación de Amigos y Damas de los Reyes Magos has reorganised the parade, adding dromedaries and new costumes for pages and monarchs.
Nature
The Racó de Sant Bonaventura-Canalons is a municipal natural site in Alcoi of 18.34 hectares, declared protected on 8 February 2002, located on the upper stretch of the River Polop, with a permanent watercourse all year round and large limestone formations sculpted by river erosion. The riverside vegetation preserves poplars and willows in limited pockets, alongside Aleppo pine woods with associated scrubland. Among the fauna are fish such as the Iberian barbel (bagra) and the relict barbel, reptiles such as the viperine snake and the European pond turtle, mammals such as the stone marten, the genet, the fox and the badger, and birds such as the eagle owl and the scops owl. The site acts as an ecological corridor between the Font Roja Natural Park and the Sierra de Mariola, as well as being a traditional recreational area.
Historical milestone
Jaume I granted in 1256 the carta puebla that founded the Christian centre around the castle, sharing out houses and lands among settlers who came from the north. The town remained a stronghold on a still unstable frontier facing the rebel mountains.
Historical milestone
The Andalusi leader Al-Azraq led three risings against Jaume I from the mountains of the interior. He died in April 1276 during the assault on Alcoi, and local tradition places on that day the origin of the devotion to Sant Jordi.
Historical milestone
In 1821 the Alcoi carders and weavers stormed the factories of the river and destroyed the newly installed spinning machines, in what is considered the first documented Luddite episode in Spain. The mechanisation of the textile industry went ahead all the same a few years later.
Historical milestone
Between 1938 and 1939 the Italian legionary air force bombed Alcoi on seven occasions on account of its metallurgical industry and its war workshops. The city dug a network of air-raid shelters beneath the streets and several buildings still keep shrapnel marks.
Historical milestone
The source of the river Molinar concentrated from the eighteenth century some twenty paper mills and fulling mills driven by the water. There began the industrialisation of the city, which moved from cigarette paper and cloth to steam and to metallurgy during the nineteenth century.
Food and drink
Alcoi is the cradle of the anchovy-stuffed olive. Here were born brands such as Serpis and La Española, which at the beginning of the twentieth century industrialised a filling until then done by hand and turned it into an export preserve in tin and in glass.
Food and drink
Distillate of wine alcohol macerated with roasted coffee that has been made in the city since the nineteenth century. It is drunk on its own, with ice and lemon in the so-called mentireta, or mixed with cola in the plis-play that circulates around the festival booths.