Walk the Huerto del Cura and the huertos around it and work out that the grid is an irrigation plan, not a landscape design

Work out the numbers: 200,000 to 300,000 palms across 500 hectares inside a working city

Find out how the white palm fronds for Palm Sunday are made — tied up and kept from the light to bleach

Follow the irrigation channels and find out how far back the system goes

Eat the dates, which are the other thing the grove is actually for

Between 200,000 and 300,000 date palms grow across about 500 hectares inside the city of Elche — the largest palm grove in Europe and one of the largest in the world, beaten only by some in the Arab world. The main species is Phoenix dactylifera, brought to Iberia by the Muslims. The irrigation system underneath it is older still: an Iberian scheme, adapted and extended by the Romans and reorganised into the ordered grid of huertos that is there now. UNESCO listed it on 30 November 2000.

The Palm Grove of Elche

Be in the basilica on 14 or 15 August for one of the two acts

Watch the machinery — the araceli lowered from the dome, which is stagecraft that has been running since the 16th century

Work out what is preserved here: text and music fixed by the end of the 1500s and sung ever since

Find out why every role including the Virgin is sung by a male, and what medieval rule that comes from

Go to the Museu de la Festa to see how the machinery works when the basilica is not full

The Misteri d'Elx is a sacred music drama of the Dormition, Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin, performed in two acts on 14 and 15 August inside the Basilica of Santa María at Elche. The text cannot be older than the last third of the 15th century and text and music were fixed by the end of the 16th; only the melismas have moved since. Every part, including the Virgin, is sung by a male, preserving the medieval liturgical rule that barred women from these plays. UNESCO proclaimed it a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on 18 May 2001.

The Misteri d'Elx: A Medieval Play Never Interrupted

Get to a hide at El Hondo at first light, which is when the ducks are on the open water

Look for marbled teal and white-headed duck, two species that nearly went and largely did not

Work out that these reservoirs were built for irrigation and became a reserve by accident

Go across to the Santa Pola salinas for the flamingos and the waders

Work out how the three wetlands function as one system for birds moving through

El Hondo, the Santa Pola salinas and the La Mata and Torrevieja lagoons form a triangle of wetlands on the Alicante coast that is critical to the biological cycles of a very large number of birds — on migration, breeding and wintering. El Hondo is the freshwater end of it, a set of reservoirs and reedbeds built for irrigation that turned into one of the most important bird sites in Spain, and it holds one of the few reliable populations of marbled teal and white-headed duck in Europe, both of which came close to disappearing.

El Hondo and the Santa Pola Salt Pans

Float in the Laguna Rosa and work out that you cannot sink in water this saline

Work out what makes it pink — halophilic bacteria and algae in water nothing else survives in

Find out what happened between 1389 and 1482 when the crown tried to make it a fishery

Go across to the La Mata lagoon, which is green rather than pink, and work out why

Look for flamingos, which feed on the same organisms that make the water pink

The lagoons of La Mata and Torrevieja have been worked for salt since at least 1321, when the crown gave Torrevieja's to the city of Orihuela, and they are still one of the largest salt operations in Europe. The Torrevieja lagoon is bright pink, from halophilic bacteria and algae living in water far too saline for anything else, and the salinity is high enough that you float in it the way you do in the Dead Sea. In 1389 the crown tried to turn it into a fishery and gave up in 1482 when it became clear no fish would enter water that salty.

Torrevieja: A Pink Lake You Can Float In

Go into the municipal archaeological museum and find out which pieces are still there after the theft of 27 August 2026

Work out why the iron pieces matter: the oldest found in Spain, from when iron was still a precious metal

Find out who José María Soler García was and what he found near this town in 1963

Climb to the Atalaya castle on the hill above the town

Come for the Moros y Cristianos, which is one of the biggest in the Valencian country

The Villena archaeologist José María Soler García found the treasure in 1963: fifty-nine objects in gold, silver, iron and amber weighing almost ten kilos, the most important gold vessel hoard in Spain and the second in Europe after the royal tombs at Mycenae. Its iron pieces are the oldest found in Spain, from a period when iron was still a precious metal worth hoarding. On the night of 27 August 2026 much of it was stolen — mostly the gold, with several silver pieces left behind — so check what is actually on display before you go.

Villena: A Bronze Age Hoard of Gold

Look up at the cathedral's 93-metre bell tower, the third tallest in Spain

Stand in front of the Baroque main façade, then find the chapel of the Vélez inside

Find the urn in the main chapel that holds the heart of Alfonso X the Wise

Go to the Museo Salzillo and find his nativity of 556 pieces and the processional figures of Good Friday

Murcia's cathedral was consecrated in 1467 and built up over the next three centuries, so its Gothic core carries Renaissance, Baroque and neoclassical additions: the bell tower, 93 metres high and the third tallest in Spain; the Baroque main façade, counted one of the masterpieces of Spanish Baroque; and the chapel of the Vélez. In the main chapel an urn holds the heart and entrails of Alfonso X the Wise. Across the old town the Museo Salzillo is given over to the city's Baroque sculptor Francisco Salzillo: the processional figures of the Cofradía de Nuestro Padre Jesús, which still go out on the morning of Good Friday, his nativity scene of 556 pieces, and some fifty of his preparatory models.

Murcia: Salzillo's Nativity and the Cathedral Tower

Get into the thermal water, which is what the place is for and has been since the Romans

Find Manuel Castaños's starred muqarnas dome, from the rebuilding of 1858 to 1878

Work out the sequence: Roman baths, disentailment sale in the 19th century, then twenty years of rebuilding

Walk the grounds by the Segura under the eucalyptus and palms

Find out what is in the water, and why hot mineral springs surface here at all

The hot springs at Archena sit beside the Segura among eucalyptus, palms and lemon trees, and the Romans found and worked them as baths. The site was sold off in the 19th-century disentailment and then completely rebuilt architecturally between 1858 and 1878 by architects including José María Aguilar y Vela, with interiors by the decorator Manuel Castaños — whose starred muqarnas dome is the thing to look at. It is still a working thermal spa rather than a monument, which means you can use it the way it was built to be used.

Archena: A Roman Spa Still Running

Eat caldereta de llagosta in Fornells, where it comes from

Work out why it costs what it does — pot-caught spiny lobster off an exposed north coast

Walk out to the Torre de Fornells, the defensive tower guarding the mouth of the inlet

Sail or windsurf the bay, which is long, sheltered and reliably windy

Walk a stretch of the Camí de Cavalls along the tramuntana coast either side of the inlet

Fornells sits at the head of a long natural inlet on Menorca's north coast — the tramuntana side, which is rockier, windier and far less built on than the south. The village is a fishing port and the dish it is known for is caldereta de llagosta, spiny lobster stewed in a clay pot with onion, tomato and garlic, eaten with bread. It is the most expensive thing on most Menorcan menus, and the reason is simply that the lobster has to be caught in pots off this coast.