Village
Orihuela is a city and municipality in the province of Alicante, capital of the El Baix Segura comarca and birthplace of the poet Miguel Hernández, with 84,560 inhabitants, of whom 32,617 live in the urban centre, on the banks of the Segura river. It is the largest municipality by area in the province, and its historic centre is designated a historic-artistic and monumental site. Its Holy Week holds international tourist interest status, and its reconquest festivities, national tourist interest status. The place name is usually linked to the Latin-Visigothic Aurariola; for a brief period during the reign of Philip V it was capital of the Kingdom of Valencia, and it was the sole seat of the diocese of Orihuela, created in 1564, until it began sharing it with Alicante in 1959.
Monument
The cathedral of El Salvador and Santa María, seat of the diocese of Orihuela-Alicante, began to be built in the late 13th century on Visigothic and Hispano-Arab remains. In 1281 Alfonso X the Wise ordered that the church of El Salvador and Santa María be the largest in the town, with primacy over the other two Oriolan parishes. In 1413 Pope Benedict XIII raised it to collegiate status, a necessary step prior to attaining cathedral rank; in 1510 Julius II created the bishopric of Orihuela united with that of Cartagena under a single bishop, a measure later annulled. It was not until 1564 that Pope Pius IV definitively separated Orihuela from the diocese of Cartagena and created its own bishopric, at the request of Philip II and in fulfilment of what had been agreed at the Cortes of Monzón of 1563.
Monument
The Conjunto Histórico-Artístico of Orihuela (a Spanish heritage designation for a protected historic ensemble), an old town declared in 1969, one of the first in Spain to receive this recognition. It brings together the cathedral of El Salvador and Santa María, the churches of las Santas Justa y Rufina and of Santiago Apóstol, the Episcopal Palace and numerous palaces and noble houses along its streets. Notable is the Colegio Diocesano Santo Domingo, also called the Colegio del Patriarca Loazes, a monumental building of more than 18,000 square metres. The ensemble also includes the house-museum of Miguel Hernández, dedicated to the Oriolan poet.
Curiosity
Miguel Hernández was born on 30 October 1910 in Orihuela, in a house on calle San Juan number 82. His family, dedicated to goat herding, later moved to a larger home on calle de Arriba number 73, today converted into a house-museum dedicated to the poet. From a very young age he too was a goatherd. He studied at the schools of the Amor de Dios and at the Santo Domingo school in Orihuela, where the Jesuits offered him a scholarship that his father turned down. In the city he became friends with the canon Luis Almarcha, who gave him access to important books, and with the baker Carlos Fenoll, in whose bakery a local literary group used to meet. After his first successes in Madrid, he returned to Orihuela in May 1932 before leaving again to devote himself to literature.
Activity
Holy Week in Orihuela, declared of international tourist interest in 2010 (Fiesta de Interés Turístico Internacional, Spain's top tourism-interest designation for festivities) and one of the most prestigious celebrations in the comarca of Baix Segura, with processions from Dolores Friday to Easter Sunday. The General Procession on Good Friday is one of the largest in Spain, with fourteen brotherhoods and more than 8000 penitents, while the one on Maundy Thursday, the Procession of Silence, sets out from the church of Santiago to the sound of the Canto de la Pasión, Bien de Interés Cultural Inmaterial (Spain's highest protection level for intangible heritage). Among its religious imagery, El Triunfo de la Cruz, la Diablesa, carved in 1695 by Nicolás de Bussy, stands out; it processes on Holy Saturday alongside the Caballero Cubierto, who, by 17th-century papal privilege, enters the cathedral without uncovering his head.
Activity
The festivities of Moors and Christians of Orihuela, declared of National Tourist Interest in 2017 (Fiesta de Interés Turístico Nacional, Spain's national tourism-interest designation for festivities), commemorate every 17 July the Christian reconquest of the city — which sources place between 1242 and 1296 — parading the Gloriosa Enseña del Oriol through its streets, within the procession of the patron saints Justa and Rufina. In former times the battle between Moors and Christians was re-enacted, with the former defeated and led in chains to the cathedral and then to the church of las Santas Justa y Rufina for a commemorative mass, a custom that gradually faded after the 1609 decree expelling the Moriscos. The modern festivities of Moors and Christians were born on 4 May 1974, when five residents created the first five festive groups.
Nature
The Pedrera reservoir is located in the municipality of Orihuela, in the bed of the rambla de Alcorisa, next to the hamlet (pedanía) of Torremendo. It was built in 1980 over an area of 1,272 hectares, with a maximum capacity of 246 hm³, by means of a gravity dam 61 metres high and 716 metres long. It belongs to the Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura and is mostly used for irrigation, above all for the Campo de Cartagena, though it also supplies drinking water to several towns in the Vega Baja del Segura via the Vistabella water-treatment plant. Its turquoise waters are surrounded by arid hills and Mediterranean scrubland.
Monument
A hermitage also known as the hermitage of the Pilgrims, in the Fuente Amarga district near the village of Torremendo, which as early as 1723 was serving the farming families of the area.
Nature
In the hills above the village of Hurchillo, hand axes and worked stones from the Lower Palaeolithic have been found, making the site one of the oldest recorded in the province of Alicante.
Monument
Built in 1728 in the village of Hurchillo, this hermitage gives its name to the patron saint festival held every September in honour of the Virgen de Monserrate.
Monument
The Cabo Roig tower, on the coast of Orihuela (Alicante), is a 16th-century watchtower, declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), built to spot Barbary pirate attacks and warn other coastal towers. Its location, on a prominent geographical feature, gave it a much wider view of the area it watched over. It is a masonry building, cylindrical in shape and battered at the base — the batter reaches three metres in height — with the access door above this plinth and numerous small windows spread across the façade to aid surveillance. After its restoration a coat of white lime was applied, giving it its present colour. Inside it is arranged over two floors and a terrace, separated by a brick vault.
Nature
The Pico Agudo rises in the area known as El Agudo-Cuerda de la Murada, located between the Orihuela hamlets of La Murada and Barbarroja, north of the municipality of Orihuela, and is the highest point in the whole comarca of the Vega Baja del Segura. It is an area of very rugged relief, crossed by numerous ravines, ramblas and other depressions, with extensive pine woods that are home to various species of birds and mammals.
Activity
A coastal path following the cliffs and coves of the Orihuela coast between Campoamor and Punta Prima, linking the developments of Cabo Roig, La Zenia and Playa Flamenca.
Activity
A traditional market held every Sunday in the streets of the Orihuela village of La Murada, one of the busiest in the Vega Baja del Segura.
Historical milestone
In 713 the Visigothic noble Theodemir signed with the Muslim conquerors a treaty that allowed him to keep the government of seven cities, among them Orihuela, in exchange for tribute. The autonomy of the territory of Tudmir was maintained until the year 825.
Historical milestone
In 1564 Orihuela obtained a diocese of its own, separated from that of Cartagena, after a long suit by the city to stop depending ecclesiastically on Murcia. The former church of El Salvador then became the cathedral of the new see.
Historical milestone
Founded in 1610 and governed by the Dominicans of the college of Santo Domingo, the University of Orihuela taught theology, arts and law until its suppression in 1807. Its old building, with two cloisters and a Baroque church, still stands.
Historical milestone
On the night of 14 to 15 October 1879 the Segura burst its banks after torrential rain and flooded the whole Vega Baja. In Orihuela some three hundred people died and the flood ruined harvests, houses and weirs over dozens of kilometres of market garden.
Food and drink
Dry rice from the stew pot with chickpeas, meatballs, blanquet and longaniza that is finished in the oven with beaten egg, forming a golden crust. It is served in an earthenware dish and it is the dish of festival meals throughout the Vega Baja.