All Along The Refuge Tower

I have not written for months, largely because this is a travel blog and most of my travels have been between the bedroom and the kitchen. Recently, however, Denise and I began looking at homes, hoping to buy something that was luxurious and inexpensive, secluded and close to both grocery stores and tram stops. You know, like so many homes (NOT!).

Our hunt led us to a region called La Huerta de Alicante (Catalan for “The Orchard of Alicante”). This in turn led me to a story about pirates and a magical and sacred relic, and the king for whom The Philippines is named.

Let us start with the king, King Phillip II. Phillip brilliantly chose Emperor Charles V and Isabella of Portugal as his parents. He thus inherited the Spanish Empire (among other regions), which he ruled from 1556–1598.

In 1553 Jerónimo Arrufat, whose name I am not making up (even though it seems to have been a compromise worked out by Apaches and the Palestine Liberation Army), told Phillip something needed to be done about the Orchard of Alicante. Berber pirates were pillaging and enslaving and raping the people of Alicante and the people didn’t like it, not one little bit.

At Arrufat’s suggestion, Phillip ordered the construction of a series of watchtowers and refuge towers. I have already written about the watchtowers, tall structures, erected on the Mediterranean coast, from which men would scan the sea for pirate ships. Upon seeing a pirate ship the watchmen would light a signal fire. Farmers further inland would then marshal their forces to meet the scallywags and/or hide in “refuge towers.”

The region now known as La Huerta is surrounded by residential and commercial neighborhoods, and it is dotted with refuge towers.

The red circle gives you an idea of where the old orchard is in relation to the rest of the city. Note that the little peninsula (which is just a small portion of Alicante) is densely populated until you get to the tram line, which follows the south side of the red circle. Suddenly there are acres upon acres of bare land, with only a few roads and small clusters of homes.

Back in the sixteenth century this land was used to grow grapes. Each farmer had his own refuge tower. Many have been destroyed, but 18 still stand (locations noted on the photo below), none of them more than a casual 40 minute walk from my house (noted on the above photo).

The towers vary, from a decrepit stone structure sitting in the middle of a desolate field, to the beautiful Torre de Santa Faz.

Torre de Santa Faz means “Tower of the Sacred Face.” Why is it called the Tower of the Sacred Face? That story begins with Christ’s crucifixion.

Veronica (no relation to Veronica Lodge) encountered Jesus as he was dragging his cross to Calvary. The march paused as she used her veil to wipe blood and sweat from Jesus’s face. This caused his image to imprint on the cloth. Veronica later traveled to Rome and gave the cloth to the Roman Emperor Tiberius. This was a very generous gift because the veil, possessing the Grace of God, was able to quench thirst, cure blindness, and even raise the dead.

Somehow the veil ended up in Constantinople, which was part of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire). This was all well and good until 1453 when that city was sacked by the Islamic Ottoman Empire. Relatives of the Byzantine Emperor gave the veil to Pope Nicholas V.

A Vatican cardinal gave the magic veil to a Spanish priest, Mosen Pedro Mena, who took it to Alicante in 1489. Why would the Vatican give to a lowly Spanish priest a veil bearing Christ’s bodily fluids, a cloth that could cure blindness and raise the dead? Nobody is sure, but I’m betting it was part of a legal settlement. In those days the church knew how to keep a secret.

Anyway, Alicante was experiencing a severe drought when Father Mena arrived with the veil. On March 17 a local priest, Father Villafranca, carried the cloth in a procession. A tear inexplicably sprang from Christ’s eye and rain began to fall. You may wonder whether perhaps that tear wasn’t the first drop of rain. Shame on you! It was a tear! It was a miracle! And because it was a miracle the people immediately erected a monastery which would house nuns who would protect the relic.

Some of you are wondering about the last sentence because you thought monasteries were for monks, and only convents housed nuns. Well, monasteries can be for either monks or nuns. This one was for nuns, presumably because men hadn’t been doing a great job of keeping track of the veil.

In 1575 the government built a refuge tower to protect the monastery.

This was one of the last towers to be constructed, and it was built to protect a flock of nuns and a holy relic, so the government hired an Italian architect to make it look cool. This is the only tower with garitones, which are those little round rooms atop each corner.

Meant to house a small garrison of soldiers, Torre Santa Faz is the largest of the Huerta towers. In case of danger locals were told to find sanctuary at the monastery, it being protected by armed soldiers and nuns with thick wooden rulers.

More modest towers include Torre Conde (“Tower Count”), pictured below. You will observe that the ground is exceedingly dry. Doesn’t look much like an orchard, does it? In the late 19th and early 20th century there was an outbreak of phylloxera, which is a microscopic aphid that eats the roots of grape vines. At the same time water became more expensive and it simply would not pay to irrigate any other crop. That’s why today an aerial photograph of the former orchard looks like a bunch of tumbleweeds settled on a big dirty parking lot. That’s pretty much what it looks like from ground level, too.

You may well wonder why the Santa Faz nuns don’t, from time to time, trot out Veronica’s veil and get some moisture on this parched section of earth. It’s because this order of nuns is too busy drinking and smoking to worry about agriculture. Don’t believe me? Here is Mother Superior’s Facebook profile picture:

I will save for another day stories about other towers in La Huerta. Stories that involve heroic knights and restaurants and rickety old cars.