Niu de metralladores de Can Picafort

The Bay of Alcúdia — and particularly Can Picafort and Son Real — has a large number of military structures along its coastline. The oldest consisted of coastal lookout posts, built in response to the threat of corsair landings and the arrival of people carrying infectious diseases.

After the end of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), and during the years immediately following it, coinciding with the Second World War (1939–1945), the Francoist authorities fortified the coastline with machine-gun nests and structures designed to house artillery. This military fortification programme is known as the “Línia Tamarit” and extended along beaches suitable for amphibious operations, with the aim of preventing a hypothetical Allied landing.

These machine-gun nests are small, partially buried bunkers built of concrete and stone, but clad externally with sandstone slabs. This served as camouflage, making them resemble traditional civilian buildings. The roof has approximately 1 metre of protective thickness. They contain a central barrel-vaulted room and two side chambers, each with an embrasure facing the beaches. The elongated shape of these openings, positioned close to beach level and wider on the outside than on the inside, allowed both grazing fire and a wider field of fire. Depending on the size of the opening, they could accommodate a machine gun or an anti-boat or anti-tank gun.

Most of the nests between Can Picafort and Son Serra de Marina share the same design and orientation towards potential landing and disembarkation areas and housed two machine guns. As each weapon required two people to operate it, a minimum of four soldiers was needed in each bunker. In some cases, where waves could reach the bunkers during severe storms, sandstone slabs were placed vertically along the seaward façade, probably acting as breakwaters to prevent direct impacts from stones thrown up by the waves and to reduce structural deterioration, while also serving as camouflage.

Most of these fortifications were gradually abandoned, and no military use has been documented after the 1950s.