Elche, city of the palm grove: Altamira to the Huerto del Cura: a self-guided walk
By Alleytale
The Moorish city, the basilica and the palm grove
Elche kept the shape of its Muslim-era town, with watchtower, baths and an irrigated palm grove around it, and the Christian town built on top of it: the mosque became the basilica of Santa María, home of the Misteri d'Elx, and a wall tower became the town hall.
The stops
Also known as the Alcázar de la Señoría, this castle-palace stands beside the Vinalopó in the middle of Elche. Gutierre de Cárdenas, a Castilian noble and the city's first lord after it returned to the Crown under the Catholic Monarchs, built it in the late 15th century as his usual residence. It was probably raised on earlier work of the 12th or 13th century that formed part of the defences of the Almohad walled town, and it now houses the city's archaeological and history museum.
Photo: Diego Delso — CC BY-SA 4.0 The Municipal Park is one of the old date-palm orchards, or huertos, of the Palmeral of Elche, and it lies today in the middle of the city on some six to seven hectares. It grew from several of those orchards joined together, and it is described as Arab-inspired, with fountains and paths shared by swans, ducks and pigeons. In its northern part, an arboretum opened by the city council in 1991 gathers date palms, pomegranates, figs, jujubes and tropical conifers.
Photo: Joanbanjo — CC BY-SA 4.0 These baths lie inside the convent of the Clarisas, the Monastery of Nuestra Señora de la Merced, and the regional tourism site calls them a remnant of the oldest Elche, almost entirely preserved. They stood near the site of the old mosque and one of the gates in the city wall, and were a place to meet and relax. Inside, three areas held cold, warm and hot water, each covered by a barrel vault with roof lanterns that let in daylight.
Photo: Joanbanjo — CC BY-SA 4.0 The Calahorra is an Almohad watchtower of the late 12th or early 13th century, part of the defensive wall of Moorish Elche. Its square tower guarded the most important entrance to the walled town, the road in from Alicante. The battlements and neo-Moorish windows were added in the 19th century, and in 1492 the town council agreed to build an annex beside the tower to hold a scale for weighing wheat before it went to the mill.
Photo: Zarateman — CC0 The basilica stands where Elche's mosque once did: after the Christian conquest in 1265 the mosque was consecrated to Mary, a Gothic church built on its ruins was pulled down, and the present baroque church was built between 1672 and 1784. Nicolás de Bussy carved its three portals in 1680 to 1682, and the west one looks like a great altarpiece in stone. Every 14 and 15 August it hosts the Misteri d'Elx, a medieval drama of the Assumption of the Virgin that UNESCO declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2001.
Photo: Joanbanjo — CC BY-SA 4.0 This municipal museum was created to catch some of the magic of the Festa, the Mystery Play, for visitors throughout the year. One room holds posters, models, crowns, costumes and guitars from the stage tradition around the play, and the other uses images, smells and sounds to bring a performance back to life. Part of it occupies the former hermitage of San Sebastián, which is closely tied to the Assumption drama and was restored for the museum.
Photo: Albertoteles007 — CC BY-SA 3.0 The oldest part of the town hall is the Torre del Consell, built between 1441 and 1444 and once part of the town wall; in 1548 Sebastián Alcaràs joined it and the neighbouring Llotja, or exchange hall, into one Renaissance palace. The clock on the Torre de la Vetla, the old wall tower closest to it, has two automatons added in the 18th century, Calendura and Calendureta, and the larger Calendura still strikes the hours. When the council took the clock down in 1879, public petition brought the figures back, and they sounded again on 1 June 1880.
Photo: Zarateman — CC0 This museum opened in 1997 and was renewed in 2006, in a traditional 19th-century house of the Huerto de San Plácido, inside the Palmeral itself, which UNESCO listed as a World Heritage Site in 2000. Its videos, panels and sounds explain the origins, history and culture of the grove and how its uses have changed. The visit then carries on into the museum's own huerto, where the traditional Elche crops and the different uses of the palm can be seen.
Photo: Josecarlosdiez — CC BY-SA 3.0 This garden takes its name from the chaplain José Castaño Sánchez, who owned it until 1918, and about a thousand palms, mostly date palms, grow on its roughly 13,000 square metres. Its star is the Imperial Palm, a male date palm whose trunk sprouted many shoots at a height of 1.80 metres in 1873, seven of which remain. When Empress Elisabeth, known as Sissi, visited in 1894, she was struck by its strength and suggested it be named, so the chaplain called it the Imperial Palm and began dedicating palms to distinguished visitors.
Photo: Etnacila — Public domain
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