Castillo de Santa Bárbara (Santa Barbara Castle)
- Mount Becantil, Castell de Santa Bárbara, views, Lord of the Rings exhibition

Santa Bárbara Castle (Castillo de SB in Spanish, Castell de SB in Valencian) is an ancient fortification that is situated on the top of the 166m high Mount Becantil, overlooking the city of Alicante. The fortress was founded by the Arabs in the 9th century, and was discovered by the Castillian forces in 1248, lead by Alfonso of Castile. The name Becantil comes from the fact that the Arab geographer Al-Idrisi alled the mountain Banu-lQatil. The Aragonese reconstructed the fortress in 1296. The castle is called Santa Bárbara, because it was recaptured from the Arabs on her feast day. At wars in 1683 and 1873 it was bombarded. The castle was later used as a prison, then closed for a time and finally opened to public in 1963. The entrance is free. You can reach the castle either by walking or driving up, or like we did, the easiest way, to take the entrance from Joveilanos road next to the sea, walk through a long tunnel and then take the elevator (not free) to the lower parts of the castle. We decided to walk down along a winding road and take the metro back to the city center from the West part of Alicante where we ended up.

During our visit there was a temporary exhibition about Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" inside small parts of the castle (see last part of the gallery below).