History of Alcossebre, the Santa Lucía hermitage and El Túnel

The place name is Arabic. Alcossebre comes from Andalusi Arabic al-qasaba / al-qusayba, that is “the citadel” or “the small castle” — a name pointing straight at the fortress that watched over this coast. From it came the historical forms Alcocéver, Alcossevre and Alcocéber, the one that took hold in Spanish.

Both live on today: Alcossebre is the official form, fixed in 1997, while Alcocebre and Alcocéber remain the most searched by people who have summered here for decades. All three mean the same village, the coastal centre of the municipality of Alcalà de Xivert-Alcossebre.

Alcossebre was born as a hamlet dependent on Xivert Castle. After the negotiated surrender of 1234, the Order of the Temple issued settlement charters to attract colonists: Alcalà in 1251 and Alcossebre around 1261. A second document, in the 14th century, again tied these neighbours to the fortress; the lordship later passed to the Order of Montesa and the area ended up part of Alcalà de Xivert.

The whole story of that fortress — the Andalusi hisn, the Templars, the abandonment of 1632 and the 68-metre bell tower — is in the guide to the history of Alcalà de Xivert and its castle.

For centuries, living by the sea meant living exposed. The Kingdom of Valencia wove a network of watchtowers to warn of raids by Barbary pirates, and on this stretch the main ones are the Ebrí tower — built around the 16th century, at almost 500 m altitude, with the whole coast in view — and the Capicorb tower, right by the sea.

The attacks are documented: raids in 1521, an assault repelled by the people of Alcalà in 1547 and another at the Capicorb tower in 1586. That threat explains why the main town sat inland and the coast had barely any houses: out here there were only towers, fields and the odd loading point.

At Cap i Corb, south of Alcossebre, stands a building unlike anything else on the Spanish coast: a set of 18th-century port warehouses of some 500 m², looking like an ochre fortress, with sturdy external buttresses, two great stone naves beside a courtyard and an original main gate.

It was not a folly: carob, salt and oil were stored there waiting to be shipped out from a small port that no longer exists. Through the 19th century the local graos and jetties worked as coastal trading ports for goods and passengers, and kept that role well into the 20th century. When the traffic died away the warehouses were abandoned… which is exactly why they reached us intact.

The coast was properly settled at the start of the 20th century. In 1903 permission was granted to build a fishermen’s quarter on Cargador beach: houses and services for fishermen, sailors and their families. That is the seed of today’s Alcossebre, the moment the village stopped looking only at its fields.

And there is a Greek chapter. In February 1904 sponge harvesting was declared free along the Spanish coast, and sponge divers from Kalymnos arrived to explore these waters for Spanish and Greek companies. That link is still remembered in town — even in the name of a nightspot, Kalymnos, which you will find in the nightlife guide.

Above Alcossebre, at 312 metres in the Serra d’Irta, stands the best-loved viewpoint in the municipality: the hermitage of Santa Lucía and San Benet, built in 1690 in Valencian Baroque. The rear of the building sits on what was most probably a 16th-century coastal watchtower: the hermitage is literally history built on history.

Next to the chapel are the pilgrims’ hostel — with rooms and stables for the animals — and two wells on the esplanade, proof of how important the pilgrimages were here. Santa Llúcia is celebrated on 13 December and the Sant Benet pilgrimage in June — in 2026 on Sunday the 21st, with mass and procession at 12:30 — and one custom of the pilgrimage is that the women carry the image of Santa Lucía and the men that of San Benet.

From the esplanade the whole bay opens up; in July concerts are even staged here (the Alcossebre En-Cant festival, in the events calendar). And the path leaving the hermitage leads to the Ebrí tower: trails and natural park in the nature guide.

It can be visited on a free guided tour: in 2026, from 14 August to 16 September, Thursday to Sunday, 8:30 to 13:30 (Xivert Castle, Wednesdays and Fridays at 8:45). And a sporting tradition was born on this climb: the Pujà a Santa Llúcia, a popular race of about 17 km that runs up from Alcossebre to the hermitage and back, organised by Els Amics de les Curses Populars Alcalà-Alcossebre.

It stands on the Sant Benet hill and its fabric is simple: a single nave with a barrel vault and buttresses. From the esplanade, on clear days, you can pick out the Columbretes Islands, the Prat de Cabanes-Torreblanca, the Desert de les Palmes, the Agulles de Santa Àgueda and even Cape San Antonio, already in Alicante. The latest restorations focused on the vaulting, the paintwork and the lighting, and improved access.

In 1971, with tourism already under way, someone looked at those abandoned warehouses at Cap i Corb and saw a nightclub. The conversion respected what mattered: the upper part was levelled to become a terrace bar with Mediterranean views, and the stone naves below were kept intact — some 40 metres of vaulting and walls whose thickness you can see at a glance — and they are what gives the place its name: El Túnel.

In 1985 a breakwater of about 100 metres was built to stop the waves battering the building and, in the process, an old mooring bollard appeared, a memento of the vanished port. Today the complex works as a beach club and cocktail bar a few metres from the water — more chill-out than dance floor — and its courtyards also open for guided visits to the warehouse. It is probably the only nightclub on the Costa del Azahar that is also 18th-century heritage.

Opening times, sessions and visits change every season: check them with the venue itself. The rest of Alcossebre’s night is in the nightlife guide.

The decisive turn came in the 1960s and 1970s: the spread of irrigation and, above all, tourism transformed the coast and made Alcossebre grow from fishermen’s quarter into a summer destination. In the 1980s and early 1990s the Las Fuentes area lived its golden age, with a shopping centre, shops, supermarket, pubs and even a water park.

The counterweight arrived in 2002: Decree 108/2002 of 16 July declared the Serra d’Irta Natural Park and its marine nature reserve, shared between Peñíscola, Santa Magdalena de Pulpis and Alcalà de Xivert-Alcossebre. That is why, with around 10 km of coastline, Alcossebre still has unspoilt coves next to its town beaches: here, history also explains the landscape. They are all in the guide to beaches and coves, and the monuments in what to see.