VILLENA COSTA BLANCA

This lively little town, lying in the wine producing area of the Vinalopo valley, is dominated by La Atalaya, the water tower, a square towered 15^th century castle. The original fortress was built by the Moors as one of a chain running up the valley, but Villena's history predates the Arabs by thousands of years. The Museo Arqueologico, housed in the lovely 1707 town hall, has collections spanning 8,000 years of early local history. The star attraction is the extraordinary gold hoard discovered nearby In the 1960s, whose solid gold pots, bowls, necklaces and bracelets date from around 3000 8C. Other treasures, including more gold, come from various nearby sites including the Bronze Age capital of the area, Cabeza Redonda. Villena's 16th-century church of Santiago, with its tapering barley sugar columns soaring up to shadowy vaulting, is a must for Levantine Gothic enthusiasts. The wonderfully ornate font was carved by Jacopo Fiorentino, an assistant of Michelangelo, who settled in Villena.

The Vinalopo river gives its name to a broad valley running southwest from the hill country behind Alicante's coastline to the plains. For centuries a strategic route, the valley was frontier territory for Carthaginians and Romans, Moors and Christians, and the rising new powers of Castile and Aragon in the years following the Reconquest. A chain of defensive castles, some wonderfully complete, testifies to these times and a drive up the valley gives you a chance to explore them. There are castles at Aspe, Novelda  Monforte del Cid, Elda, Petrel  and Sax with Biar lying a little to the north.