Send Gift Baskets to Alicante, Spain

Over 7000 years of human existence have been recorded around Alicante. Between 5000 and 3000 BC, the first hunter-gatherers moved down from Central Europe. Benacantil‘s slopes were home to some of the world’s earliest settlements. Iberian tribes were introduced to the alphabet, iron, and pottery wheel by Greek and Phoenician traders in 1000 BC. It is generally assumed that Akra Leuké was located on the site of modern Alicante (Greek: ), which means “White Mountain” or “White Point”).

The Romans ultimately ruled Hispania Tarraconensis for more than 700 years after being conquered by the Carthaginians. Rome was in decline by the 5th century A.D., and the Roman predecessor town of Alicante, Lucentum (Latin), was essentially under the control of the Visigothic warlord Theudimer from 400 to 700 AD. The Arabs conquered Medina Laqant in the 8th century without much resistance from the Goths. The Moors ruled southern and eastern Spain until the Reconquista (Reconquest) in the 13th century. The Castilian king Alfonso X conquered Alicante again in 1247, but the kingdom passed to King James II of Aragon in 1296. In medieval Valencian Parliament (Corts Valencianes), it became a Royal Village (Vila Reial).

Alicante became a central Mediterranean trading station after decades of conflict between the Kingdom of Castile and the Crown of Aragon. After the Reconquista, King Felipe III expelled thousands of Moriscos from Valencia due to their cooperation with Barbary pirates who regularly attacked coastal cities and harmed trade. In the aftermath of this act, the feudal nobility was slipping into bankruptcy, with many skilled artisans and agricultural workers being gone.