Visit to Ancient Roman Town of Lucentum and Exhibition

Our next trip is with the new History Group to visit the ancient Roman town of Lucentum site and the exhibition about it at the Alicante Archaeological Museum.

Before Alicante became Alicante, there was Lucentum, a major trading centre just 3 km from today’s city centre close to the Albufereta beach. Lucentum is now a 5-hectare archaeological site and one of the most important in the Valencia region.

The site preserves its original urban layout in excellent condition, surrounded by a 600 m perimeter wall. Throughout its centuries of history, Lucentum experienced periods of splendour and decline, reaching its peak during the reign of Emperor Augustus when it became a Roman town. At that time, it expanded and built a forum, public baths, temples, and a sophisticated sewage system. It was finally abandoned in the 3rd century CE, and the stones were gradually taken away. By the 1960s, the construction boom had left it a patch of waste ground surrounded by apartment blocks. What was left was saved when the government expropriated the plot and declared it a Historic-Artistic Monument in 1961. There is a web page with information in English.

Alicante Archaeological Museum (Marq) has organised an exhibition, “Ciudades de Luz” (Cities of Light), displaying artefacts from the different towns built on the site (Lucentum, Ákra Lueké and Lacant) by Carthage and Rome. The exhibition was scheduled to close in May but has been extended until September, so we still have an opportunity to visit it. The website is only in Spanish but the labels in the exhibition are in English and Spanish.

The museum has produced a very good short video documentary. Unfortunately, it is only in Spanish, but well worth watching to get an overview of the town in different periods and the current exhibition.

Our planned itinerary for Wednesday, 4th June is: 10:00, leave Calpe. 11:00 arrive Lucentum site. 12:00, bus transfer to Marq museum, arriving at 12:30. 12:30-14:30 free time to see both exhibitions and have refreshments in the Barq café-restaurant. 14:30 leave to arrive back in Calpe at approximately 15:30.

We have not booked a guided tour in English, but the labels at the Lucentum site and exhibition are in English and Spanish, and we will have basic information sheets to hand out.