Benidorm presents the 'Plan of the Serra Gelada and Penyes de l'Albir', "a work that remains for history"

The municipal center El Torrejó today hosted the presentation of the 'Plan of Serra Gelada and Penyes de l'Albir', "a work that remains for history" and for "future generations", as the mayor pointed out today Tony Perez. An "exhaustive" work, which includes 220 toponymic references from both the land and the sea part of the Serra Gelada; promoted by the Taula del Bon Profit Hydrographic Commission and coordinated by Jaume Fuster.

In addition to the mayor and Jaume Fuster, the presentation was attended by the Councilor for Historical and Cultural Heritage, Ana Pellicer; and Professor Francesc Xavier Llorca Ibi, an active part of the project and a great connoisseur and scholar of local toponymy.

About thirty people have participated in the tasks of documentation, information gathering, and design of the plan; twenty of them "informants" from Benidorm, l'Alfàs del Pi, and Altea who have transferred their knowledge about the Serra Gelada and its surroundings to the authors, as explained by Fuster. The map -the mayor explained- is, therefore, "a choral work", in which its authors have invested five years, and which "comes to synthesize, accurately mark and name" the points and enclaves that they enclose the Serra Gelada and the bay of Benidorm "in order to preserve a heritage that belongs to everyone" and prevent its disappearance.

Toni Pérez has stressed that, although many studies have addressed the Serra Gelada, "there was a part that was held with pins, the toponymy", which is "very important because it gives references, maintains the oral tradition and gives a lot of cultural and historical value ”. After applauding the initiative of the Hydrographic Commission of the Taula del Bon Profit and the push that Jaume Fuster has given to the project, the mayor has assured that "this collective work reflects the feelings of many and the passion for the Serra Gelada", which " It has reached our times maintaining its virginity, which is protected and which is the most visited natural park in the Valencian Community”.

Precisely to the "passion" and "fascination" of Jaume Fuster for the Serra Gelada, the councilor for Historical Heritage referred, who recalled that this map is the direct consequence of the photographic exhibition "Parc Natural de la Serra Gelada. Les llums de l'abisme', by Jaume Fuster himself. It was on the occasion of this exhibition that it was detected that "no official map collected all the toponymy of the Serra Gelada" and that the public was unaware of the location of many of the points and enclaves it houses. A lack of knowledge is now resolved with this plan, of which a thousand copies have been published, all of them numbered by hand.

During the presentation, Jaume Fuster explained how the plan creation process was and how the sea stones included in the document were geo-referenced. Fuster, who has advanced that there will be new projects linked to the Serra Gelada, has conveyed that for the design of this plan he sought to follow the aesthetics of those made in the last third of the 19th century by Rafael Pardo de Figueroa; a task to which Professor Francisco Aracil, the person in charge of drawing it by hand, dedicated five months.

Francesc Xavier Llorca Ibi, for his part, explained to those present some of the most interesting issues of the toponymy of the Serra Gelada, which is "living history" and is a reflection of its own configuration and the use that human beings have made of it throughout the centuries and times with activities such as agriculture, fishing or grazing. Llorca Ibi signs the article on toponymy located at the back of the map.