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

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

Swim in water that is nowhere more than seven metres deep and several degrees warmer than the open sea

Walk or drive La Manga and work out that in places this sandbar is a hundred metres wide with sea on both sides

Take a dip in the mud at Lo Pagán, where people coat themselves in the lagoon's mineral mud and bake

Find out what happened: nitrates and phosphates off the farmland stripping the oxygen out, thousands of fish dead in October 2019 and tonnes more in August 2021

Work out what Spain did in October 2022 — granted the Mar Menor rights of nature, the first ecosystem in Europe to be given them

The Mar Menor is 135 square kilometres of saltwater lagoon cut off from the Mediterranean by La Manga, a sandbar 22 kilometres long and in places only a hundred metres wide — the largest lagoon in Spain, nowhere more than seven metres deep, and warm and calm enough that it has been a nursery sea for beginners for generations. It is also in crisis. Nitrates, ammonium and phosphates washing off intensive farming have stripped the oxygen out of it: thousands of fish died in October 2019 and four to five tonnes were removed in a single week in August 2021. In October 2022 Spanish lawmakers granted the lagoon rights of nature — the first ecosystem in Europe to be treated as a legal person.

The Mar Menor: Europe's Largest Saltwater Lagoon

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

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 to one of the coves and work out that this is what the whole coast looked like before the 1960s

Walk the clifftop coast path between the beaches rather than driving between them

Find the fossil dunes and the salt flats behind the beaches

Work out why it survived: protected in time, and cars stopped at the gate in summer

Climb one of the low sierras behind for the view over the whole park and the Mar Menor beyond

The Murcian coast south of the Mar Menor was comprehensively built on, and then it stops. Calblanque is a regional park of low sierra, fossil dunes, salt flats and coves of pale sand with nothing behind them — no hotels, no promenade, no bars. It was protected in time, and the way it stays that way is that in summer private cars are stopped at the entrance and a bus runs instead. Walking in from the gate is the other option, and the coast path along the top of the cliffs is the best of it.

Calblanque: The Coast the Mar Menor Development Missed

Go into the monastery begun on 7 May 1529 and find the Plateresque east wing, which was built first

Work out what Caput Ordinis meant and what the Order of Santiago ran from this hill

Find the older Muslim and military fabric underneath the Renaissance building

Look at the carved wooden ceiling in the refectory, which is the thing people come for

Find out where the Camino de Uclés starts and how long it takes to walk

Alfonso VIII gave the castle at Uclés to the Order of Santiago in 1174, and it became the Caput Ordinis — the head of the order, its most important house anywhere. The present monastery was begun on 7 May 1529, under Charles I, starting with the Plateresque east wing, on a hill above the village with the older Muslim and military fabric underneath and around it. It gets called the Escorial of La Mancha. The Camino de Uclés, a pilgrimage route from the church of Santiago in Madrid, ends here.

Uclés: The Escorial of La Mancha

Get into the free thermal pools at the riverside, where hot spring water meets the Cidacos

Take the waters properly at the spa if you want them at full temperature

Watch the griffon vultures on the cliffs above the village, which is a substantial colony

Walk the greenway along the old Cidacos railway line up the valley

Go on up the valley to the dinosaur track sites towards Enciso

Arnedillo sits in the Cidacos gorge in the Rioja Baja, with hot springs that surface in the riverbed itself — there are free public pools at the water's edge where the thermal water mixes with the river, and a paying spa in the village for the same water at full temperature. The cliffs above hold a large griffon vulture colony, close enough to the road to watch from below. The Cidacos valley is also dinosaur track country, with several signposted sites on the way up towards Enciso.