Not everything is Sun, Beach and Party in Jávea. For those travelers who prefer to soak up the local culture ,Jávea stands on the western tip of the peninsula, on the shores of the Mediterranean. Its privileged and strategic situation has historically favored the settlements of diverse cultures, which left their mark and bequeathed as inheritance the particular character of the municipality.
The diversity of cultures has been enriching. However, the constant threat that for centuries meant the attacks and incursions arrived by sea imposed a peculiar urbanism of defense, converting it into a walled town. It is between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries when the trace of history is more marked in the layout of streets and suburbs.
Hoy recorrer las calles y rincones del Centro Histórico de Xàbia es respirar su rico pasado, marcado por la historia y la tradición rural.
The Medieval Town
The old medieval village was a small enclosure enclosed by a wall, dating from the fourteenth century and comprising a network of narrow streets with an almost orthogonal perimeter. Within this primitive walled town there was a fortification or cortigium built on earlier defensive structures such as the Andalusian Torre d’Encairat or the primitive church, today the apse of the current Gothic building.
It is currently considered one of the most beautiful examples of Elizabethan or plateresque Gothic and since 1931 it has been declared a Historical Artistic Monument.
San Bartolomé’s Church
The origins of this imposing Tuscan stone building date back to the 14th century, with the construction of the current apse. Once again, it is the attacks of corsairs and pirates that mark the destiny of the building. The danger and the need to have a place to take refuge advise to enlarge the strength of the center of the village, which from that moment will combine a double need: religious and defensive.
Currently, in addition to the temple, San Bartolomé is the usual setting for classical music concerts due to the perfect acoustics that its vaults give it.
Soler Blasco Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum
A few meters from the Church Square, in the Plaça dels Germans Segarra, we find the main example of civil architecture of the town. It is the House-Palace of Antoni Banyuls, notable character of his time and steward of Philip III.
Of this beautiful building erected in the first half of the seventeenth century, highlights its magnificent facade in rough stone, and its upper gallery of “porxens”, as well as the pavement of clay tiles and “mocadorets” green and white preserved in one of its rooms.
The Tosca Stone
EThe golden color of the coarse stone dominates every corner of the town, giving it an ancient and monumental touch. The essential element of the local architecture is a calcareous sandstone, formed by beach dunes more than one hundred thousand years old.
Currently these “toscars” are a valuable natural heritage, which reveals the landscape and climate of the past, but also the traditional techniques and procedures for the extraction of Tosca blocks, a unique element of the rich traditional architecture of Xàbia.
