Village
Caravaca de la Cruz is a city of about 26,000 inhabitants in the Murcian Noroeste comarca, considered since 1998 one of the eleven holy cities of the Catholic Church for the privilege of celebrating, every seven years, a perpetual jubilee year centred on the relic of the True Cross; the first was held in 2003, with a visit from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. For this reason it is also known as the Ciudad de la Cruz. Its patronal festivities, from 1 to 5 May, declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico Internacional (the highest tourism distinction the Spanish State grants to a festival) in 2004, combine Moros y Cristianos with the Caballos del Vino, inscribed as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2020. The municipality, the twentieth largest in Spain, rises from the city's 625 metres to the 1,612 metres of the sierra de Mojantes, watered by the Argos and Quípar rivers.
Monument
The Real Basílica-Santuario de la Vera Cruz, of Islamic origin, stands atop a hill, inside the castle of Caravaca de la Cruz. It was rebuilt from 1617 onward on an old medieval chapel that kept a Lignum Crucis -a fragment of Christ's cross-, designed by friar Alberto de la Madre de Dios, and was finished in 1703. The Baroque façade, added in the 18th century with marbles and jasper from the area, functions as a great open-air altarpiece. It houses the relic of the Cruz de Caravaca, toward which pilgrimages have been made since the 13th century, and since 2003 it has held a perpetual Jubilee Year every seven years, a privilege shared only by Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela and Santo Toribio de Liébana. It was declared a Monumento Histórico-Artístico in 1944 and a Basílica Menor in 2008.
Monument
15th-century fortress that surrounds the Shrine of the Vera Cruz, with great walls and a network of cisterns that allowed its occupants to store rainwater during sieges.
Monument
Built around 1560, it was the first religious foundation of Caravaca de la Cruz and stands right in the centre of the city's historic quarter. The current temple was finished in the 18th century and belonged to the Jesuits, together with the adjoining convent, until their expulsion in 1767; since then it has had very different uses, from inn to garage, and today it functions as a municipal cultural centre.
Curiosity
Pope John Paul II granted Caravaca de la Cruz the bull of Perpetual Jubilee, giving it the same religious status as other key cities of Christendom such as Rome, Jerusalem, Santiago de Compostela and Santo Toribio de Liébana.
Activity
Equestrian festivity held in Caravaca de la Cruz from 1 to 3 May, organised by the Bando de los Caballos del Vino, a federation of sixty peñas that compete in three contests: Caballo a Pelo, Enjaezamiento and Carrera, the latter the most crowded, on the morning of the 2nd. It is part of the Fiestas en Honor a la Santísima y Vera Cruz, which continue until the 5th and attract more than 100,000 visitors each year, with processions and parades of Moors and Christians. Declared of International Tourist Interest in 2004, in 2020 Unesco recognised the Caballos del Vino festivity, with horses adorned in cloaks embroidered in silk and gold, as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity; its origin is linked to the transport of wine to the castle for the ritual bathing of the Cross.
Monument
Renaissance-style church dating from 1532, built on the site of the former church of the Cofradía de la Hospitalidad de San Juan de Letrán. It preserves a polychrome Mudéjar coffered ceiling from the 16th century and an 18th-century Baroque altarpiece with an Immaculate Conception by Francisco Fernández Caro, a disciple of Salzillo. Protected as a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection).
Monument
Church of the Discalced Carmelite convent founded in 1586 with the direct involvement of San Juan de la Cruz, following the license granted by Felipe II on the 16th of May that year. The Baroque-style church was completed in 1635; its current layout and the altarpieces by Agustín López and Miguel Calzada date from the second half of the 18th century.
Monument
El Templete, also called el Bañadero, is a small Baroque religious building with a hexagonal floor plan inscribed within a circle, built in 1762 in Caravaca de la Cruz, in the Murcian Northwest comarca. Every 3 May it hosts the bathing of the Santísima y Vera Cruz, a ritual act that has been held since 1384. The building stands at the end of La Glorieta, a tree-lined promenade in the city.
Monument
The Museum of Ethnic Music of Barranda is a musicological centre located in the Caravaca district of Barranda (Region of Murcia), with a collection of instruments from 145 countries gathered by ethnomusicologist Carlos Blanco Fadol since the 1970s and opened in 2006. Organised around chordophones, membranophones, idiophones and aerophones, with pieces ranging from the 3rd century BC to the 20th century, it groups the instruments by their uses: religion, slavery, magic, war or courtship, with a section devoted to instruments adapted for people with disabilities. The building, the work of architect Jesús Carballal, includes a raised auditorium and a waterwheel that produces melodies with rainwater, linked to the tradition of Cuadrillas singing, celebrated in Barranda since the 16th century.
Monument
Museum housed in the former church of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad, the first parish founded in Caravaca de la Cruz, with pieces from the Ibero-Roman site of La Encarnación.
Monument
The bullring of Caravaca de la Cruz was opened in 1880 on the site of a former Franciscan convent, and is part of the city's civil heritage. In a 1926 renovation it was given a Neo-Mudéjar façade, which is what characterises the building today.
Activity
The Caballos del Vino are the most representative event of the Fiestas en Honor a la Santísima y Vera Cruz de Caravaca de la Cruz, held from 1 to 5 May and declared of International Tourist Interest in 2004; the festivity itself, organised by the Bando de los Caballos del Vino, a federation of sixty horsemen's peñas, was recognised as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by Unesco in 2020. The peñas and their horses take part in three contests: the Caballo a Pelo, the Enjaezamiento and the Carrera, the last of which is the most crowded, held on the morning of 2 May, when the decorated horses race in honour of the Cross. The festivities attract more than 100,000 visitors from all over the world every year.
Monument
The Museo de la Fiesta occupies the Palacio de los Uribes, a 16th-century building on calle de las Monjas in Caravaca de la Cruz (Northwest, Murcia), acquired by the Caravaca Jubilar tourism consortium in July 2001; it reopened in February 2023 after a refurbishment and expansion of its collections. It is devoted to the festivities of the Santísima y Vera Cruz, held from 1 to 5 May, and displays on its four floors, 2,000 m² in total, the costumes of Moors and Christians, the mantles worn by the Caballos del Vino, harness and equestrian equipment, and giants and big-heads, with a basement of interactive modules.
Monument
A walled precinct that was a Templar fortress and later belonged to the Order of Santiago, with fourteen towers of different sizes and shapes; the Santísima Cruz is kept inside.
Monument
Held to be the masterpiece of the Murcian Renaissance and one of the outstanding temples of the holy city of Caravaca de la Cruz, this parish church was begun in 1526 and inaugurated in 1571 with the transfer of the Blessed Sacrament from the old church of la Soledad.
Monument
A Baroque building with a hexagonal plan inscribed in a circle, built in 1762, located at the end of the tree-lined promenade of La Glorieta in Caravaca de la Cruz. Every 3 May, after the procession from the Church of El Salvador, it hosts the traditional Baño de la Santísima y Vera Cruz (the Bathing of the Most Holy True Cross), a ceremony celebrated since 1384 and one of the oldest traditions in the city.
Monument
A church in the historic centre of Caravaca de la Cruz, one of the city's main religious buildings alongside the Carmelite convent. Its bell tower is known as the Torre de los Pastores (Tower of the Shepherds), and inside stands out a 16th-century Mudéjar coffered ceiling in polychrome wood. The altarpiece of the high altar houses the titular image of the Immaculate Conception, a work by the Caravaca-born sculptor Francisco Fernández Caro from 1792, and the church also preserves a Christ at the Column and a Saint Joseph and Child attributed to Nicolás Salzillo.
Monument
The Convent of Santa Clara, in the historic centre of Caravaca de la Cruz (Murcia), is part of the group of convents and churches that dot the city. It was founded in 1609 by Catalina de Robles and Ginés de Perea, chief magistrate and notary of the Holy Office of the Kingdom of Murcia, on the site previously occupied by the hermitage of the Apostle Saint Bartholomew and the first location of the Society of Jesus in the city. It comprises two separate buildings, church and convent; the church, with the sober lines typical of the Franciscan spirit, was completed around 1718.
Monument
The only 17th-century hermitage surviving of the fourteen that lined the old Way of the Cross of Caravaca; its viewpoint offers views of the town and the surroundings of the River Argos.
Monument
The hermitage of Saint Helena, in Caravaca de la Cruz (Murcia), stands on the plaza de los Caballos del Vino, also called the plaza del Hoyo, presided over by a sculpture commemorating this Caravaca festival. It forms part, together with the hermitages of Saint Sebastian and de la Reja, of the group of small churches that dot the municipality.
Monument
The Casa-Museo de los Caballos del Vino, opened in 2014 in a baroque seventeenth-century manor house of the Muso Melgarejo family, is devoted to the Caballos del Vino festival of Caravaca de la Cruz, recognised by Unesco as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and celebrated every year between 1 and 3 May. Its centrepiece is the collection of fourteen hand-embroidered cloaks in gold, silk and silver, adorned with gems, brocades and tassels, which the riding clubs (peñas) place on their horses during the encierros, and whose development runs from the simple harnesses of the early twentieth century to today's elaborate embroidery. The building, restored with European funds, also houses an embroidery workshop and a cellar with about twenty half-buried wine jars.
Monument
Museum housed in the former church of la Soledad, bringing together archaeological remains from excavations carried out in the municipality of Caravaca de la Cruz. It stands on the Cuesta del Castillo, in the heart of the historic centre, inside what was Caravaca's first church, built in the sixteenth century. Its collections come mainly from finds made at the Ibero-Roman complex of La Encarnación, although some of the most notable pieces from these excavations, such as the Centaur of Royos and the Diadem of Caravaca, are now kept at the Museo Arqueológico Nacional (Spain's National Archaeological Museum).
Historical milestone
Alfonso XI handed over definitively in 1344 the town and its commandery to the Order of Santiago, after three decades of direct administration by the Crown following the dissolution of the Temple; the Santiago knights governed the territory until the 19th century.
Historical milestone
The master of Santiago Juan García de Villagera y Padilla recognized in 1354 Caravaca's status as a town, with its own council and territory, at a time when the stronghold was the defensive key of the Castilian frontier with the kingdom of Granada.
Historical milestone
The queen granted Caravaca the title of city in 1849, when the town was already the comarcal head of the Murcian northwest and an established center of pilgrimage around the relic of the True Cross.
Food and drink
A sweet made only with fresh egg yolks and sugar cooked to the thread stage, kneaded and coated; they are eaten in small mouthfuls and are, along with marzipan and alfajor, the baking most tied to the city of the Cross.
Food and drink
Oven-roast lamb with potatoes, onion and pine nuts that takes its name from the earthenware dish in which it is cooked; it is the dish of the great family celebrations and of the May festivities of Caravaca.