Alicante · Baix Vinalopó
Santa Pola
A fishing and salt-working town on its broad bay, with a 2,470-hectare wetland to the west and Tabarca lying offshore beyond the cape.
Salt works and waterbirds
A town between the salinas and the bay
Santa Pola faces a broad bay from the site of the Roman port that served Ilici, with a fishing harbour and a compact centre gathered around its sixteenth-century fortress.
West of the town, working salt pans preserve part of the old coastal wetland. Offshore beyond the cape, Tabarca's walled settlement and marine reserve form a separate island landscape most directly reached and understood from Santa Pola.
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The salinas and the island offshore
The Salinas de Santa Pola: salt making, flamingos and a living wetland
How an old coastal lagoon became working salt pans and why managed brine, mud and marsh support one of southern Alicante's major bird sites.
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Nueva Tabarca: an island settlement built in 1770
The rescued Tabarkino families, Carlos III's planned citadel and Spain's first marine reserve off the Santa Pola cape.
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