History & Culture

Wedged between the Valencia region and Andalucía. Murcia was historically coveted by Castilians and Valencians alike, but nevertheless managed to develop a strong personality of its own. Murcia was home to the ancient Iberians, Carthaginians and Romans, as well as the Visigoths and Moors. All found a land of plenty, and Murcia evolved as a synthesis of the different civilizations that passed through Spain. One of the most fair-weather regions of Spain, Murcia receives three thousand hours of sunshine a year, and the Mar Menor ("Little Sea"), a huge salt water lagoon, enclosed by sand banks that is the largest of the European continent, provides magnificently warm waters and many extra miles of beachfront. Conditions are ideal for creating salt flats, from which salt was extracted by the ancients to preserve fish, and today it is a local industry. At the northern end of the lagoon the salt pans and wading flamingos present a stunning scene.

Murcia yields the finest fruit and garden produce and is known for the intense flavor and vivid colors of its vegetables. Its huertas (family farming plots) and rice fields, both products of centuries-old Moorish irrigation systems, turn an otherwise arid landscape richly green. In Alcantarilla there is still an enormous functioning Arab waterwheel, turned by the force of river waters flowing from the mountains, that scoops up the water as it passes and deposits it in aqueducts that lead to the huertas. Murcia penetrates much farther into the mountainous interior of Spain that other east coast provinces, and it is in the hillier terrain that the fine Jumilla wines are made

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Naturally, the region's fine vegetables are the stars of Murcian cooking, along with rice dishes made from locally grown Calasparra rice, the only Spanish rice with its own denomination of origin.

Attractions

The capital city of Murcia is known for fine dining, for its Old Quarter and its singular Salzillo Museum, where the dramatic, life-size wood polychrome works of the prolific eighteenth century Murcian sculptor, Francisco Salzillo, are concentrated.

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