Introducing the Sierra Helada, Costa Blanca

ALFAZ town hall has produced a 32-page guide to the Costa Blanca’s Sierra Helada and the route leading to the Albir Lighthouse. The guide, which was written by Alfaz’s municipal archaeologist Carolina Frias, biologist Jose Santamaria and the designer Andres Diaz, gives details of the flora and fauna, geology, fossils and marine environment of the Sierra Helada, which was declared a national park in 2005.
“This is one more of the many steps this local government has taken to give prominence to Alfaz’s natural, cultural and intangible heritage,” said Alfaz’s mayor Vicente Arques.
“In 2011, with the help of the park board, we opened the Faro, as an Interpretation Centre, an informal museum that made it the Valencian Community’s first cultural lighthouse,” Arques said. The lighthouse, built in 1862, still guides shipping but is now powered by solar panels instead of oil-burning lamps.
“Our purpose is to preserve this important element of our heritage and promote the multiple cultural and environmental values of the Sierra Helada as well as the need to involve everyone in protecting it,” he declared. The 1,500 copies of the guide will be distributed in Alfaz’s tourist offices, the Casa de Cultura as well as meeting places and headquarters of the town’s many groups and associations.