Casa Carbonell stands on Alicante's Explanada de España like a provocation made permanent. Built in the early 1920s by architect Juan Vidal Ramos, its French Renaissance façade is all towers and grandeur, and according to legend, that was entirely the point.

Its commissioner, Enrique Carbonell, made his fortune manufacturing French military uniforms during the First World War. Turned away from the adjacent Palas hotel for arriving with muddy clothes, he bought the plot next door and erected a building so magnificent it drove the hotel out of business.

The building has had its share of drama regardless. In 1925, a postal pilot flying from Algiers crashed into one of its towers. It also has 365 windows: one for every day of the year.

VoiceMap's self-guided audio tours use Casa Carbonell to trace Alicante's architectural golden age, connecting this act of revenge-in-stone to Juan Vidal Ramos's other landmarks across the city.