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| Ayuntamiento de Murcia |
Our bus plundered through the Spanish countryside. Shaking and wobbling its way around the bendy roads, constantly turning as we moved through a chain of large mountains.
Peering out the dirty bus window we could imagine that we were in a western movie, large golden coloured rocky mountains covered the horizon, sandy desert lay from the road to their feet. Cactus and small dusty shrubs dotted the forefronts. It was nothing but arid, sandy, dry desert land.
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| Kara outside the Murcia Cathedral |
As our bus veered closer towards our destination, palm trees begun sprouting from the ground, falling and drooping in odd directions.
Through the windscreen we could see healthy plantations of orange farms indicating more fertile lands as we crossed the flat plain.
Murcia the capital of the Murcia region, is a small and very typical Spanish city at the bottom east side of Spain. Commissioned by the Emir of Córdoba in 831 a small settlement was built along the banks of the Segura river. Way off the normal tourist routes the city is renowned for its local produce. In fact its name derives from the Latin Murtae (Mulberry). For centuries mulberry leaves were grown to feed silk worms, an industry that lasted well after WWII; that was until they could not compete with man made fibres. Unfortunately, with less than 300mm of rain annually, growing their famed vegetables doesn't come easy!
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| Front of the Episcopal Palace |
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| Gardens in the Plaza de Martinez Tornel |
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| Nuestra Senora del Carmen |
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| Statue in Plaza Santa Catalina |
The city of Murcia doesn't have huge monuments, famous museums or much to overwhelm a visitor. But it does have maybe some of the best food in Spain. The food alone is worth a visit, that and the true Spanish experience. We arrived late afternoon and it was siesta time, something taken extremely seriously down in these southern parts. With the temperature hovering around 35degrees we ventured out to quietly, in the empty streets, see what Murcia had to offer hungry travellers.
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| Ensalada Murciana |
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| John with his Pastel del carne |
Ohh, but we didn't get far, at the end of our street we stopped for a qinto y tapa of Ensalada Murciana (small bottled beer with a type of potato salad) and then next door to there we paused to try the local meat and egg pie! Slightly salty but bursting with flavour surrounded by a light melt-in-your-mouth pastry. Happy chappies we veered towards the large Cathedral of Murcia. This beautiful building made of sandy stone is famed for its artistic diversity, a super-imposed facade of Baroque over a large Gothic style interior. Several other pretty buildings pulled us closer but it was the picturesque fountains and corners of the Plaza de las Flores we liked most.
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| Rome Theatre |
Spending some time walking around, everything was still very much closed as we mentioned, siesta is taken very seriously here with the large majority of bars and restaurants only re-opening at 8pm. By then, a little peckish again we found a small taparia open serving cold food and tried two local dishes the pisto (vegetables fried with pepper, onion and tomato) and a mushroom shrimp concoction accompanied with light fruity Murcian white wine.
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| We tried some pinchos too! |
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| Trying more local specialities |
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| Warm Jamon mini-Burgers |
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| An amazing dish from our hotel |
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| Catching the full moon |
Our last tapa of the day was an amazing garlic jamon and mushroom dish with Estrella beer at our hotel restaurant for uno euro night! Alright, alright we ended up having two each!
It was a short weekend stay in Murcia but most enjoyable!
Tot siens,
John and Kara
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