Qualla: Alcalà de Xivert

Alcalà de Xivert: Introduction

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Columbusalbus, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 30 August 1905, scientists travelled from across the world to a small inland town in the province of Castelló to watch the sun go out. Alcalà de Xivert lay directly beneath the path of a total solar eclipse that swept from the coast of North Africa up into the north-east of Spain, and for a couple of minutes at midday the day turned to an eerie twilight. That an obscure Valencian farming town should briefly host the international astronomical community was an accident of celestial geometry, but it is the kind of accident that a place remembers.

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Image: Columbusalbus | CC BY-SA 4.0

Alcalà de Xivert: Two Minutes of Night at Noon

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 19Tarrestnom65, CC BY-SA 4.0. The eclipse of 1905 was one of the great scientific events of its day, and its shadow track ran straight through this corner of Spain. Observers came with their telescopes and glass plates, hoping for clear skies and a clean view of the sun's corona, that ghostly halo visible onl...

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Image: 19Tarrestnom65 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Alcalà de Xivert: The Castle in the Name

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Juan Emilio Prades Bel, CC BY 4.0. The town's name is really a description. Alcalà comes from the Arabic al-qalat, "the castle," so Alcalà de Xivert means, more or less, the castle of Xivert. That castle still stands on the ridge above the town, first built by the Moors in the 10th or 11th century and later rebuil...

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Image: Juan Emilio Prades Bel | CC BY 4.0

Alcalà de Xivert: A Valley Without a River

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Antonio Rubio from madrid, España, CC BY 2.0. The town sits inland in a flat valley pressed between two mountain ranges, the Serra d'Irta toward the sea and the Serra de les Talaies behind. It is a curiously dry setting: there is no river running through the valley at all. Instead the water surfaces in natural ponds the loca...

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Image: Antonio Rubio from madrid, España | CC BY 2.0

Alcalà de Xivert: The Tower You See for Miles

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Falconaumanni, CC BY-SA 4.0. The landmark that announces Alcalà de Xivert from a distance is not the castle but the church. The Església de Sant Joan Baptista, the Church of Saint John the Baptist, was built between 1736 and 1766, a substantial Baroque work with a large dome and a fine ornamented portal. Abo...

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Image: Falconaumanni | CC BY-SA 4.0

Alcalà de Xivert: The Town and Its Shore

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Columbusalbus, CC BY-SA 4.0. Modern Alcalà de Xivert lives a double life, split between the historic town in the valley and the coast a few kilometres east. Its territory reaches the Mediterranean at a string of seaside settlements, Alcossebre, Capicorb and Les Fonts, and it is there that the town's contempo...

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Image: Columbusalbus | CC BY-SA 4.0