The Basilica de Santa María is Alicante's oldest church, and it has earned that status the hard way. Built between the 1300s and 1500s on a demolished mosque, it survived a major fire and a direct naval bombardment by the French in 1691. Cannonballs are still lodged in its walls.

Despite its name, the building only received official papal recognition as a basilica in 2007. One of its two towers was added in the 1700s; the older held a prison. During the Spanish Civil War, altars and furnishings were burned in the square out front before the church became a military warehouse.

Francisco Javier de Balmis, who led one of history's first global smallpox vaccination campaigns, was baptised here in 1753. VoiceMap's audio tour uses the basilica to trace Alicante's layered past, connecting Moorish foundations, Reconquista rebuilding, and the survival of a city that has repeatedly refused to stay down.