Village
Murcia is the capital of the Región de Murcia and the centre of the Huerta de Murcia comarca, situated on the banks of the río Segura, 46 kilometres from the Mediterranean. With close to 480,000 inhabitants, it is the seventh most populous municipality in Spain. Founded in the year 825 by order of Abderramán II, it was capital of the cora of Tudmir and of several taifa kingdoms before being incorporated into the Crown of Castile in the 13th century. Historically known as “the orchard of Europe” for the fertility of its land, it preserves a notable baroque heritage: the Cathedral, with its baroque façade and Gothic interior, the Casino and the sculptural work of Francisco Salzillo. Its Fiestas de Primavera and its Holy Week are both declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico Internacional (the highest tourism distinction the Spanish State grants to a festival).
Monument
Cathedral begun in the 14th century on the site of the former main mosque, with an imposing 18th-century baroque façade by Jaime Bort and a predominantly Gothic interior. Its Vélez chapel holds the reliquary with the heart and entrails of Alfonso X the Wise, as he laid down in his will.
Monument
A monographic museum dedicated to the Baroque sculptor Francisco Salzillo y Alcaraz (Murcia, 1707-1783), considered the most representative Spanish religious-imagery sculptor of the 18th century and one of the great figures of the Baroque. Trained in the workshop he inherited from his father, Nicolás Salzillo, he devoted himself exclusively to religious subjects and gave his work a style transitional towards Rococo and Neoclassicism. The museum stands beside the church of Jesús (1696), on the Plaza de San Agustín, and brings together the eight processional pasos of the Cofradía de Nuestro Padre Jesús, known as the procession of the Salzillos, which parade on the morning of Good Friday, along with a nativity scene of more than 550 figures.
Monument
The Real Casino de Murcia, a social club founded in 1847, is one of the city's most emblematic buildings, and stands in the centre, on Calle Trapería, near the cathedral. Its construction began in 1853 and the premises grew room by room throughout the 19th century, mixing different artistic trends; the present façade, the work of the architect Pedro Cerdán, dates from 1902. Its rooms, among them the Patio Pompeyano, the Salón Árabe inspired by the Alhambra and the English Library, can be visited even though the building remains the seat of a private club: it is in fact the most-visited civil building in the Región de Murcia, with an average of 150,000 visitors a year in organised groups. Declared a national historic-artistic monument in 1983, it was thoroughly restored between 2006 and 2009, after which King Juan Carlos I granted it the title of Real.
Monument
Located on the Plaza de Julián Romea, it is the city's main theatre and one of the most important in the country. It was opened by Queen Isabella II on 25 October 1862, with the play El hombre del mundo performed by the actor Julián Romea, who gave it its name in 1872. It suffered two major fires, in 1877 and in 1899, which forced it to be almost entirely rebuilt on both occasions by the same architect, Justo Millán, giving rise to the legend of the curse of the Romea; its façade, in an eclectic style with Modernista details, dates from 1880, and its interior from the refurbishment after 1899. Its stage saw the premieres of works by Jacinto Benavente and, in 1933, of La Barraca by Federico García Lorca. It was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 1990 and reopened in 2012 after its latest restoration.
Monument
Church linked to the former Dominican friary founded after the reconquest of the city in the 13th century, of which only the church survives after its disentailment in 1835. Its Rosary chapel, begun in 1543 and consecrated in 1575, is one of the jewels of Murcian religious art.
Monument
The church of San Miguel Arcángel, in the Arrixaca Vieja quarter, north of Murcia, was built from 1691 after the 1651 flood that destroyed the original 1625 church; the main chapel was completed in 1703 under the master builder Pedro Ruiz and the building was consecrated in 1712. It is one of the finest examples of Murcian Baroque. Its main altarpiece, commissioned in 1731 from Jacinto Perales and Francisco Salzillo -who carved the archangels, virtues and angels-, is one of the most outstanding pieces in the church. It also preserves a San Miguel of 1708 by Nicolás Salzillo and a Holy Family by his son Francisco, and it belongs to the diocese of Cartagena.
Monument
Church of the former Mercedarian convent, present in Murcia since the Christian conquest of 1266, although successive floods of the Segura forced it to move to its current site, beside the Puerta de Santo Cristo, in 1560. The first church was built in 1562 and the cloister, today home to the Faculty of Law of the University of Murcia, was built between 1604 and 1628. The building preserved today, with a Baroque façade begun in 1711, was erected between the 17th and 18th centuries, replacing an earlier church that was at risk of collapse. After the disentailment of 1835 the convent was bought by private individuals and used as a warehouse and silk factory, until the church was given to the Franciscans, who still run it today; the complex was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 1981.
Monument
In the north wing of the Royal Monastery of Santa Clara, it occupies the site of the old Alcázar Menor or Qasr al-Sagir, the palatial estate of Murcia's Muslim rulers in the 12th and 13th centuries. It is considered the best preserved example of 13th-century Islamic palace architecture on the whole Iberian Peninsula.
Monument
The Palacio del Almudí stands on the Plano de San Francisco in Murcia. On 10 June 1554 the concejo agreed to build a new municipal wheat granary here, replacing an older one on the Plaza de San Julián, which would also house the grain market and the flour weighing station. A fire destroyed that first building in 1612 and forced it to be rebuilt on the same site, somewhat enlarged; the building preserved today was completed in 1628, with the involvement of master craftsmen such as Cristóbal de Salazar, who possibly carved the coats of arms on the portal. After serving as a cavalry barracks in the 19th century and as a Palace of Justice from 1886, a 1985 restoration turned it into the municipal archive and an exhibition hall, a use it retains today. Its name comes from 'almud', an old unit of capacity for grain.
Monument
A fortress built by the Almohads in the 12th century on a hill occupied continuously since the Argaric culture, with a later Iberian and Roman presence. It was conquered by Ferdinand III in 1245 and passed to the Bishopric of Cartagena in 1311. Arab sources already mention the castle in the 11th century, but the major works were carried out in the 12th century, under the rule of Ibn Mardanish; Christian chronicles record the presence in the fortress of Alfonso X the Wise and James II. Built with mortared rammed-earth walls, it is organised into three platforms with cisterns, storerooms and chambers, and its towers form the re-entrant-angle corners typical of the Mardanish taifa. At the summit stands today the monument to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a fourteen-metre sculpture designed in 1951 by Nicolás Martínez.
Monument
Monumental figure of the Sacred Heart of Jesus crowning the castle hill of Monteagudo, 14 metres high with arms outstretched 11 metres. Originally erected in 1926, it was pulled down during the Civil War and raised again in 1951.
Monument
Remains of the defensive wall that surrounded Islamic Murcia, founded in 825, of which sections and the Puerta Nueva survive. It also served as protection against the frequent flooding of the río Segura. The wall, raised during the Andalusi period, remained in use until 1488, when the Kingdom of Murcia ceased to be a frontier land; from then on it fell into a slow decline aided by the growth of the city, and its old walls were reused as foundations for new buildings. The gates that gave access to the old medina were the last structures to disappear, as late as the second half of the 19th century. Numerous excavations in the second half of the 20th century brought to light several stretches that can be visited today, in the open air or in the basements of buildings.
Monument
The oldest bridge in Murcia over the River Segura, built between 1718 and 1742. It owes its name to the chapel dedicated to the Virgen de los Peligros at one end, invoked to protect the city from floods.
Monument
An old dike built in the 15th century to protect the districts of San Antolín and San Andrés, and with them the rest of the city, from the flooding of the Segura, against the river's meanders and the floods of the Guadalentín; it was rebuilt by Francisco de Luján y Arce in 1736 and was never overtopped, not even in the Santa Teresa flood of 1879. Situated three metres above ground level, it surrounds the city on its western side for more than 1.5 kilometres and has been used as a promenade since time immemorial; during the Fiestas de Primavera and the Feria de Murcia it hosts food stalls and craft markets. Declared a historic-artistic monument in 1982, it is today a tree-lined promenade beside which stands the León del Malecón, a popular symbol of the city.
Monument
A Baroque sanctuary located in the hamlet of Algezares, in Murcia, whose present building began on 16 February 1694 on the site of a medieval hermitage cared for by monks, already documented in 1429. It houses the image of the Virgen de la Fuensanta, patroness of Murcia and its huerta since the mid-18th century, when a persistent drought that ended after prayers to her strengthened her cult; for the September and spring festivals the image is taken to the cathedral, and its return to the sanctuary is the highlight of the most crowded pilgrimage. The façade, the work of Toribio Martínez de la Vega, bears a portal carved in stone by Jaime Bort; inside, the main altarpiece replaces the original Baroque one, destroyed in the Civil War, and the Christ Child carried by the image is attributed to Francisco Salzillo. The image was canonically crowned in 1927.
Nature
The Jardín de Floridablanca, in the Carmen district of Murcia, beside the río Segura, began as a tree-lined avenue planted in 1786 by the corregidor Juan Pablo de Salvador; shortly afterwards Vicente Cano Altares put up a pergola and flowerbeds. In the mid-19th century the mayor Marín Baldo invested 26,084 reales de vellón in its renovation, completed in 1849, making it one of the oldest gardens in the city. In that same remodelling, facing the church of El Carmen, the monument to the Conde de Floridablanca was also installed, the work of the sculptor Santiago Baglietto. The garden, with a monumental entrance displaying the coat of arms of Murcia, takes its name from this illustrious 18th-century Murcian, a minister to Charles III and Charles IV.
Nature
The Jardín de la Seda, an urban park in the San Antón district opened on 6 December 1990, occupies the site of the former silk factory 'la Mayor', which remained active until the mid-20th century and gave the park its name; its chimney, still standing, is today a symbol of the park and the district. The site has a long earlier history: a hermitage of San Lázaro with a hospital was set up there in the 15th century, the origin of today's hermitage of San Antón, and later a convent of the brotherhood of San Diego, active until the disentailments of the 19th century. Arranged around an artificial lake, its name recalls the historic splendour of the Murcian silk industry, linked for centuries to the huerta and its mulberry trees.
Nature
El Valle y Carrascoy Regional Park is a protected natural area of the Región de Murcia that stretches across the municipalities of Murcia, Fuente Álamo de Murcia and Alhama de Murcia, between the comarcas of the Huerta de Murcia and the Campo de Cartagena. It covers about 16,724 hectares of the mountain range that closes off the floodplain of the río Segura and part of the Guadalentín valley, and was created in 1992 by merging the Monte El Valle nature park, in existence since 1978, with the sierras de Carrascoy y El Puerto, protected since 1985. Because of its closeness to the capital, it is the main green lung of the city of Murcia and its whole metropolitan area. Its highest point, the sierra de Carrascoy, reaches 1031 metres and preserves relict specimens of holm oak and cork oak.
Nature
The Cresta del Gallo, declared a Special Protection Area for Birds because of its density of eagle owls, is a mountain formation reaching 523 metres in the hamlet of Garres y Lages, near Murcia, whose highest point, the Relojero, reaches 605 metres; together with the sierra de Carrascoy it forms part of the parque regional de Carrascoy y El Valle, and was declared a natural site of national interest in 1931. It owes its name to the large reddish rocks on its summit, among them La Panocha, a monolith with a 55-metre drop on its north face that can only be topped by climbing; from its rear side the Mar Menor can be seen on clear days. It is a popular hiking destination, with a climbing school and a recreational area, reached from Beniaján, Algezares or La Alberca.
Nature
Iberian settlement and sanctuary in use from the 5th century BC until Romanisation, beside the necropolis of the Cabecico del Tesoro, which has yielded important vessels and votive offerings now kept in the Archaeological Museum of Murcia.
Monument
Azud Mayor or Contraparada, a dam built between the 9th and 10th centuries on the río Segura, between the hamlets of Javalí Nuevo and Javalí Viejo, in the municipality of Murcia, which distributes the water of the Murcian huerta between its two main irrigation channels, the Aljufía, to the north, and the Alquibla, to the south. It stands on a natural narrowing of the riverbed, and there are signs it made use of an earlier Roman structure, enlarged after the founding of the Arab citadel of Murcia in the year 825. It has been repaired several times over the centuries, including a major restoration in 1748, and suffered serious damage in the torrential rains of 2016 and the cold drop of 2019. It has been a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) since 2002.
Monument
Waterwheel in the hamlet of La Ñora, on the Aljufía main irrigation channel, documented since 1399 although rebuilt in metal in 1936. Declared a Monumento Histórico-Artístico (Spain's heritage designation in force between 1931 and 1985) in 1982, it is, together with the one at Alcantarilla, one of the symbols of the huerta (irrigated farmland) of Murcia.
Curiosity
A customary tribunal, whose rules are set by tradition, created in 1848 to settle irrigation disputes in the huerta de Murcia. Its hearings are oral, with a clerk recording the statements, and it is chaired by the mayor of Murcia or his deputy, who has the casting vote in the event of a tie and may fine members who miss meetings. It is made up of five sitting members and five proxies, the latter entitled to serve only once a year, and it rules on complaints about breaches of the huerta's bylaws. It holds its hearings in public on the first Thursday of every month at Murcia city hall. Together with the Tribunal de las Aguas de Valencia, it was declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2009.
Curiosity
The greatest river disaster in the history of Murcia: on 14 and 15 October 1879 the Segura burst its banks, fed by a flood on the Guadalentín that reached 1,450 m³/s at Lorca, and caused a flow of 1,890 m³/s in the Murcian capital, the largest ever recorded until then in Murcia and Orihuela. The river overtopped the Malecón and rose 10.50 metres in front of the Palacio del Almudí, flooding much of the city; in total it caused more than a thousand deaths, 761 of them in Murcia, destroyed 5,762 homes and shacks and killed 22,469 animals. After the disaster, in March 1881 Sister Piedad de la Cruz arrived from Barcelona with three postulants to found, with the approval of the diocese of Cartagena, a congregation devoted to the poor, the sick and the orphans left by the flood.
Curiosity
On 29 July 1876 a temperature of 47.8 ºC was recorded in Murcia, the highest value measured in Spain throughout the 19th century. That same day other stations on the peninsula recorded even higher values, but they were never validated, being considered doubtful, so the Murcia reading remains the official one.
Curiosity
Writer and diplomat born in 1584 in Algezares, then part of the Murcian huerta, who represented the Spanish crown at several European courts during the 17th century and took part in the signing of the Peace of Münster that ended the Thirty Years' War.
Curiosity
José Moñino y Redondo, born in Murcia in 1728, was first secretary of State during the reign of Charles III and a driving force behind major Enlightenment reforms; he gives his name to the city's historic municipal garden. He studied law in Orihuela and took his doctorate in Salamanca; as prosecutor of the Council of Castile he acted against the instigators of the Esquilache riots and helped carry out the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767. As ambassador to the Holy See he secured the dissolution of the Society of Jesus in 1773, the year in which Charles III granted him the title of count of Floridablanca. At the head of the Secretariat of State between 1777 and 1792, he steered foreign policy toward confrontation with Great Britain, which made it possible to recover Menorca in 1782 and Florida in 1783.
Curiosity
The Murcian engineer Juan de la Cierva invented the autogyro, forerunner of the modern helicopter, whose first successful flight took place in 1923, a landmark in the history of aviation. Born in Murcia on 21 September 1895 and died in Croydon on 9 December 1936, holding the title of count of la Cierva, he was the son of the lawyer and politician Juan de la Cierva y Peñafiel, a minister on several occasions and mayor of Murcia, and grandson of the forestry engineer Ricardo Codorníu. He trained as a Roads, Canals and Ports engineer and, before devoting himself entirely to aviation, was a deputy to the Cortes for Murcia in the elections of 1919, 1920 and 1923. Throughout his life he received numerous honours from national and foreign aeronautical associations.
Activity
The Bando, with its great parade of floats and groups dressed in traditional huertano costume that runs through the city centre, is a day devoted to celebrating the traditions of the huerta; in 2012 it was declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico Internacional (Spain's highest official tourist-interest designation for festivals). Its origin goes back to the last day of the 1851 carnival, when a group of well-off young men organised it to mock the people of the huerta: the parade set out from what was then the plaza de toros de San Agustín, led by two majos on horseback and a horse decked with palm fronds, flowers and vegetables, followed by huertanos in traditional dress. Over the years that mocking intent disappeared and it became a celebration in honour of the huerta. It has gone through five periods with gaps of up to twenty years, such as the one that followed the Santa Teresa flood of 1879.
Activity
The Entierro de la Sardina is a pagan festival declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico Internacional (Spain's highest official tourist-interest designation for festivals) that closes Murcia's Fiestas de Primavera with a parade of floats ending, on the Saturday after Holy Week, with the symbolic burning of a sardine. It began in 1851 when a group of students, imitating masquerades seen in Madrid, paraded through the streets mimicking a funeral procession; it grew in importance until it became the city's most important celebration, though it suffered suspensions and was only revived in 1899 after criticism over wasteful spending. In 1854 the Bando del Casino, the seed of the Testamento de la Sardina, was read for the first time. Born as the closing act of Carnival, once it was fixed at the end of the Fiestas de Primavera it lost its link to Carnival and came to be understood as an allegory of the end of Lent.
Activity
The Semana Santa de Murcia, declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico Internacional (Spain's highest official tourist-interest designation for festivals) on 5 April 2011, is celebrated every year between Viernes de Dolores and Easter Sunday and stands out for its sculptural heritage, with 18th-century carvings by Francisco Salzillo — especially the Good Friday morning processions organised by the Cofradía de Jesús — alongside works by Diego de Ayala and Domingo Beltrán from the 16th century, Nicolás de Bussy from the 17th, and contemporary pieces by Juan González Moreno, José Sánchez Lozano and José Planes. With a distinctive style that emerged in the 18th century, it departs from both Andalusian influence and Castilian style; its senior brotherhood, Los Coloraos, dates back to the early 15th century, making it the city's oldest celebration.
Activity
Murcia's Fiestas de Primavera are held the week after Holy Week and are, together with the Feria de Murcia with which they share dates, the most important celebrations in the Murcian capital. Although officially a city event, their influence goes beyond the local area and reaches municipalities in the Huerta de Murcia, the Vega Media and the Vega Baja del Segura. They took this name in 1899, when they consisted only of the Batalla de Flores and the Entierro de la Sardina, a parade documented since 1850, together with the Bando de la Huerta, which dates back to 1849; both events originated as an extension of Carnival and remain today the central acts of a festival that combines the religious, the cultural and the popular.
Monument
Municipal museum devoted to the history of the city from its Islamic origins to the present day, with particular attention to its urban development and the Murcian huerta.
Curiosity
Its foundation goes back to 1272, when King Alfonso X the Wise created general schools of Arabic and Latin in Murcia, the historical forerunner of today's Universidad de Murcia, followed by the Colegio de San Esteban, founded in 1555, and the Seminario Mayor de San Fulgencio, from 1592. The first attempts at a modern university, the Universidad Literaria of 1840 and the Universidad Libre de Murcia (1869-1874), lasted barely a few years. The definitive foundation came at the end of 1914, opening in 1915 at the Instituto Provincial; it moved in 1920 to the Escuelas Graduadas del Carmen, with professors such as Jorge Guillén and María Moliner, and in 1935 to the former convent of la Merced. Today it has more than 34,000 students spread across six campuses.
Curiosity
The great Segura flood of 1651, known as the riada de San Calixto, devastated the lower Segura valley as it passes through Murcia in the early hours of 14 October that year. An isolated upper-level depression (a cut-off low) dumped more than a thousand litres per square metre in a few hours, and the overflowing waters flooded towns such as Orihuela, Molins, Algorfa, Almoradí, Benijófar, Rojales and Guardamar del Segura, as well as Murcia itself, with an estimated flow of 1,700 m³/s. It is estimated that at least a thousand people died, most of them along the riverbed, from collapsing homes and being swept away by the current; the figure used locally puts the toll at around 1,500 dead. It is one of more than a dozen great floods suffered by the city since the 14th century.
Monument
A church at the heart of the San Antolín quarter, one of the oldest and most emblematic in the historic centre of Murcia. Next to the church are the remains of the Arab wall of Las Verónicas and traces of an Arab bathhouse.
Monument
Church around which the Murcian district of San Pedro developed, built on a former mosque converted into a temple after the conquest of the city by James I of Aragon in February 1266. The district still preserves the layout of the medieval streets of Islamic Murcia. The present building, in Baroque style, was raised in the early 17th century, with interior alterations in the 18th; its façade, the work of Diego de Ergueta completed in 1612, bears a papal coat of arms and sculptures of San Pedro and San Pablo, and the tower, of three tiers, may have reused an old minaret. It houses the main altarpiece by Nicolás de Rueda, begun in 1765, and several carvings by Francisco Salzillo, among them the Cristo de la Esperanza (1755) and San Pedro arrepentido (1780).
Monument
A temple rebuilt in the 19th century on the site of one of the oldest parishes in the historic centre of Murcia, whose origins go back to the Christian conquest of 1266, when it occupied a former mosque. The present building blends the original fabric from the late 18th century, whose construction began in 1767 and was halted for decades, with the central nave and main façade, the work of the architect Justo Millán between 1879 and 1883, in eclectic historicist style. Looted during the Civil War, it lost part of its works of art, although others were saved thanks to the Junta de Incautación del Patrimonio. Among its images it preserves the Virgin known as “las Angustias”, a work by Francisco Salzillo, and was declared Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 1983.
Monument
Former College of San Esteban, in the centre of Murcia, today the seat of the Presidency of the Region of Murcia and of the regional Council of Government. Founded in 1555 by the Society of Jesus thanks to the initiative of the bishop of Cartagena, Esteban de Almeyda, the main building was finished in 1557 and the church in 1569. For two centuries it educated a good part of the men of letters of the Kingdom of Murcia, such as Francisco Cascales or Francisco Salzillo. After the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 it served as a barracks, and from 1777 it housed the Casa de Misericordia. Declared Monumento Nacional (former Spanish state heritage-protection designation) in 1931, the complex was restored and since 1984 has housed the regional Presidency, with the old church fitted out as an exhibition hall.
Monument
Parish church of the Murcian hamlet of El Palmar, founded as a hermitage by the councillor Juan de Verástegui and raised to a parish in 1614 by bishop Francisco Martínez de Cenicero, converted into a perpetual vicarage in 1795. Built in Baroque style over the former hermitage of the Hacienda de Verástegui, it was for centuries an annex of the parish of Santa María de Murcia. Between 1913 and 1918 it was extended with two new arcades and the present façade was raised. In 2007 it hosted the beatification of the martyr Fortunato Miguel Arias Sánchez.
Monument
The castle of la Asomada, or cabezo del Puerto, stands 532 metres above sea level on Phoenician remains, in the Murcian hamlet of El Palmar, next to the puerto de la Cadena, a natural pass between the Campo de Cartagena and the vega of the Segura. Its construction, around the 12th century, is attributed to Ibn Mardanish, the Wolf King, at the height of the splendour of the taifa of Murcia; together with the castles of Portazgo Inferior and Superior, at its foot, it formed a strategic complex to control communications between the huerta and the interior. It is the only archaeological point revealing an occupation earlier than that of the castles in the area. Included in the Carrascoy - El Valle natural park, several trails climb to its summit, popular for the panoramic view over the Segura valley.
Monument
An Andalusi fortification in the outlying village of El Palmar that controlled communications between the interior and the coast, part of the defensive system protecting the huerta of Murcia in Islamic times.
Monument
A theatre in the outlying village of El Palmar opened on 24 July 1910 thanks to local industrial patronage, an example of early 20th-century Modernista architecture in the Murcian huerta.
Monument
The main church of the outlying village of Beniaján, of Baroque architecture with ornate altarpieces, the religious head of a settlement whose own irrigation channel was already regulated in the founding charter of 1474.
Monument
The image venerated in the sanctuary of Beniaján, a hamlet of the Huerta de Murcia, bears the full title of Our Lady the Most Holy Crowned Virgin of Carmel and of the Blessed Souls of Purgatory. Its iconography reflects the belief that the Virgin of Carmel is the advocate of the souls in purgatory: she appears with the Christ Child in her arms, both wearing the scapular of Carmel, upon a cloud from which angels rescue souls wrapped in flames who implore salvation. The image receives worship in its Chapel-Sanctuary, incorporated within the parish of San Juan Bautista, in the heart of the old quarter of Beniaján, and in its honour the hamlet's patronal festival is held in mid-July.
Nature
El Puntarrón Chico is a conical, terraced hill on the outskirts of Beniaján, surrounded by the bed of a rambla at the entrance to the Puerto del Garruchal. It takes its name from the neighbouring Puntarrón Grande, a reddish stone cabezo 380 metres high, on whose summit the Muslims stationed a garrison to watch over the passage between the Segura valley, the Campo de Cartagena and the Mar Menor area. Both hillocks, part of the sierra de Cañisola, have since 1992 been part of the El Valle y Carrascoy regional park and are protected by its environmental measures. Since 2021 the Puntarrón Chico site has been declared Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) for its archaeological value.
Curiosity
In the 19th century Beniaján was one of the centres of support for the Murcian Cantonalist movement, led by Antonio Gálvez Arce, a native of the village and one of the leading figures of that revolutionary episode of 1873.
Monument
The hermitage of Nuestra Señora de la Luz built over an ancient Iberian sanctuary on the Monte de la Luz, active between the 4th and 1st centuries BC, where votive offerings and ritual metal remains have been found.
Monument
A convent on the foothills of the Monte de la Luz, near archaeological remains from the Islamic period, part of the religious heritage of the villages around Santo Ángel.
Curiosity
A bust of the patron saint of Cabezo de Torres which, according to tradition, wept on 8 August 1706, a miracle recognised by the Bishop of Cartagena, Luis Belluga. The image remained in Murcia Cathedral for 288 years before returning to the village in 1994.
Activity
One of the most traditional carnivals in the Murcian huerta, with more than 150 years of history and a modern format established since 1972, bringing together around fifty troupes in its parades.
Monument
Hermitage of the hamlet of Alquerías (Huerta de Murcia) dating from the time of the Reconquest and housing a Marian image from the late 13th or early 14th century. The hermitage was originally dedicated to Santa María, an invocation under which worship and veneration were given to the Virgin of the Olive, and it is today one of the main places of interest in the hamlet.
Monument
An old iron bridge crossing the River Segura at the outlying village of Alquerías, whose original settlement, called Cinco Alquerías, hosted a treaty between the crowns of Castile and Aragon in 1329.
Monument
Parish church dedicated in the mid-16th century to Our Lady of Loreto, patron saint of the Murcian hamlet of Algezares, in the Huerta de Murcia. In Renaissance and Baroque style, it preserves a Mudéjar coffered ceiling over a single nave, with a later Latin-cross layout and arcades in Murcian style; the paintings of the main altar and of two side chapels date from the 16th and 17th centuries, and the plasterwork of the cornices and medallions from the 18th. It houses the present carving of the Virgin, a 1940 work by the sculptor Gregorio Molera Torá, which replaced the 18th-century image destroyed in the Civil War. Its feast day, 10 December, was moved from the 1950s to the first weekend of October because of the climate; it is also, since 1920, patron saint of the Spanish Aviation and of the Air Force.
Curiosity
The House of the Nativity Scene, based at the Casa de la Torre, is the centre of the craft tradition of nativity scenes that has given the Murcian hamlet of Puente Tocinos the nickname Cradle of the Nativity Scene. The first nativity-scene craftsman, Antonio Galán Rex, set up his workshop in 1930 at the place known as el Tío Italiano, and since then the craft has grown steadily to attain considerable importance in the hamlet.
Activity
A festival in Puente Tocinos that recreates, with popular barbecues throughout the district, the legend of the origin of its name: a cart loaded with cured pork that fell from a bridge over the Segura and whose contents were shared out among the locals.
Historical milestone
Emir Abderramán II ordered in 825 the building, beside the Segura, of a new capital for the cora of Tudmir, then shaken by struggles between Arab lineages; around that foundation the city wall, the almunia (estate), and the irrigation system of the Vega de Murcia were organized.
Historical milestone
In the Murcia governed by Ibn Mardanish, the Wolf King, Muhyi al-Din ibn Arabi, one of the great thinkers of Sufism, was born on 28 July 1165 in Calle Cubos, near the city's main mosque. When the Wolf King died in 1172 and Murcia fell into Almohad hands, his family moved to Seville, where he trained alongside two Sufi mystics, Fatima of Córdoba and Shams of Marchena. He later travelled through North Africa, Mecca, Baghdad and Konya before settling in Damascus, where he died in 1240 and where his tomb is still preserved, a place of pilgrimage over which the Ottomans built a madrasa. He left behind an immense body of work that influenced all later Mediterranean mysticism.
Historical milestone
Ibn Mardanish, called the Wolf King by the Christians, governed from Murcia between 1147 and 1172 an extensive independent emirate that resisted the Almohads for twenty-five years, allying itself with Castile and with the Italian republics.
Historical milestone
Signed around 2 April 1243 at the Real Monasterio de Cortes de Alcaraz, the treaty was agreed between the infante Alfonso of Castile -the future Alfonso X, representing his father Ferdinand III the Saint- and the representatives of the emir of Murcia, Muhammad ibn Hud, who was under pressure from the threat of the Order of Santiago and the Nasrid kingdom of Granada following the internal breakup of the Hudid emirate. It established a protectorate that handed over the fortresses to Castilian troops and part of the revenues in exchange for keeping the Muslim ruler, his religion and his laws. Lorca, Mula and Cartagena rejected the agreement: the first two were conquered in 1244 and Cartagena in 1245, with the help of a fleet from the Cantabrian coast. The Mudejar revolt of 1264-1266 ended up voiding the commitments the treaty imposed on the Castilian crown.
Historical milestone
The Mudejar revolt that shook the south-east of the peninsula broke out in July or August 1264, spurred on by the forced relocations imposed by Castile and by the emirate of Granada. James I of Aragon intervened at the request of his daughter Violante, wife of Alfonso X of Castile, and marched with his troops from Valencia in late October 1265; he laid siege to Murcia on 2 January 1266, the city surrendered on the 31st and the Aragonese king entered it on 2 February. With the revolt put down, he returned the city to his son-in-law Alfonso X: the Muslims were confined to the walled quarter of la Arrixaca, while Catalan and Aragonese settlers repopulated the huerta, leaving their mark on the speech and place names of Murcia.
Historical milestone
Francisco Salzillo y Alcaraz was born in Murcia on 12 May 1707, the son of the Neapolitan sculptor Nicolás Salzillo, settled in the city, and he lived and worked there his whole life until his death on 2 March 1783. Considered the most representative religious sculptor of the 18th century in Spain and one of the great masters of the Baroque, he devoted himself exclusively to religious subjects; his style evolved toward Rococo and Neoclassicism within the workshop he inherited from his father. His output includes the eight pasos that process on Good Friday in the so-called Procesión de los Salzillos and the famous nativity scene. Today the city preserves a museum dedicated to his work, the Museo Salzillo, which brings together his most characteristic pieces.
Food and drink
Paparajotes are a typical dessert of the Murcia huerta, made with lemon-tree leaves coated in a batter of flour, milk and egg, fried and dusted with sugar and cinnamon; the leaf is not eaten, it only flavours the batter and serves as a handle to hold it by. They were introduced by the Arabs in Murcia and were traditionally made daily in farmhouse kitchens. Today they are the typical sweet of the Bando de la Huerta, Murcia's spring festival, alongside the buñuelos eaten on the day of San José. During these festivities and at the Feria de Septiembre, the huertano peñas set up stalls where they are served. There is also a savoury variant, the paparajotes totaneros, with mashed chickpeas, egg, cod, garlic and parsley, usually added to a chickpea and potato stew during Holy Week.
Food and drink
Round puff-pastry pie filled with minced beef, chorizo and boiled egg, with the characteristic puff-pastry lid formed by concentric spiral rings; its making is documented from the 17th century, when in 1695 an ordinance set the measurements, the quality of the flour and the penalties for craftsmen who failed to comply. It is typical of the Huerta de Murcia, especially of the city of Murcia itself, Alcantarilla, Cieza, Abanilla and nearby Orihuela, and has Arab roots; the base is shortcrust pastry and each portion measures about 15 centimetres in diameter. There is a variant called especial that adds lamb's brains to the filling. Since 2009 Murcia has dedicated a day in April to this pie, during which thousands of free portions are handed out to the public.
Food and drink
La marinera is a typical tapa of the gastronomy of the Region of Murcia: on an elongated bread roll a portion of Russian salad is placed and topped with an anchovy; if the topping is a fresh anchovy in vinegar instead, the tapa is called marinero. Its origin is disputed between Cartagena and Murcia: oral tradition places its invention in the late 1970s or 1980s among sailors from Cartagena, while the oldest printed reference, from 1984, links it to the bars of the Plaza de las Flores in Murcia. Since 2022 the Asociación de Amigos de la Marinera has been promoting its declaration as International Marinera Day on 10 April, and in 2024 the ONCE lottery dedicated a ticket to it.
Food and drink
A scrambled-egg dish with produce from the Murcia huerta, traditionally made with courgette and onion cooked very slowly in oil until they break down, though it also admits tomato and, when courgette is lacking, potato; some cooks even make it without egg. It is sometimes seasoned with aromatic herbs such as oregano and spices such as pepper, and it is very common to find it as a tapa in the bars of Murcia, served warm or hot, although it is also eaten cold with bread or as a side dish for fish. It should not be confused, due to its phonetic similarity, with the Extremaduran zorongollo. The courgette pisto is derived from it, a recipe from La Mancha and Murcia that adds pepper, tomato or pumpkin to the original zarangollo.
Food and drink
A powder obtained from grinding the pepper of the bola variety, dried in the sun or in drying sheds, covered by a protected designation of origin; its intense color and its sweet flavor make it indispensable in salted fish, cured sausages and rice dishes.