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Murcia is the capital and largest city of the Region of Murcia in south-eastern Spain, with about 479,000 people, the seventh-largest city in the country. It lies on the Segura river amid the Huerta de Murcia, a fertile plain of orchards and vegetable fields that earned it the name Europe's orchard.
Abd ar-Rahman II, Emir of Córdoba, founded the city as Mursiyah in 825, and its Moorish rulers built a network of irrigation channels that still waters the huerta. It became capital of an independent kingdom in the 12th century, passed to Castile after 1243, and flourished in the 18th century on the silk trade, which paid for most of its Baroque churches.
Visitors come for the cathedral and its Baroque facade, the Real Casino, the Salzillo Museum and the Moorish palace remains at Santa Clara, and for walks by the Segura and its old bridge. Holy Week and the Spring Festival fill the streets each year.
The Cathedral of Murcia, dedicated to Saint Mary, was consecrated in 1467 on the site of the city's main mosque and blends Gothic work with Renaissance, Baroque and Neoclassical additions. Its bell tower rises 93 metres, and its main facade, finished in 1754, is a masterpiece of Spanish Baroque.
The Episcopal Palace of Murcia, seat of the Diocese of Cartagena, was built between 1748 and 1768 facing the cathedral square of Plaza Belluga. French troops under Marshal Soult used it as their headquarters in the Peninsular War, and Queen Isabella II stayed there on her visit of 1862.
The Real Casino de Murcia is a private club on Calle Trapería whose building was begun in 1853 and given its eclectic street facade by Pedro Cerdán in 1902. Its neo-Nasrid Arab Patio needed more than 20,000 sheets of gold leaf, and it is the most visited civil building in the Region of Murcia.
Teatro Romea is the main theatre of Murcia, opened by Queen Isabella II on 25 October 1862 and named in 1872 after the Murcian actor Julián Romea. Fires in 1877 and 1899 led to rebuilding by Justo Millán, so its facade dates from 1880, and Lorca's company La Barraca performed here in 1933.
The Salzillo Museum is devoted to the Baroque sculptor Francisco Salzillo and adjoins the Church of Jesús on Plaza de San Agustín. It keeps the processional figures carried through the city on the morning of Good Friday, about fifty of his sketches and his celebrated Nativity scene of 556 pieces.
The Monastery of Santa Clara la Real is a convent of Poor Clares founded in the 14th century over the Al-Qasr al-Sagir, a palace built for Ibn Hud between 1228 and 1238. It keeps the most important remains of Islamic art in Murcia, a Gothic cloister and a Baroque church, and part is now a museum.
Monteagudo Castle sits on a rocky peak 149 metres above sea level about 5 kilometres north-east of the centre, overlooking the whole Huerta de Murcia. First recorded around 1078, it took its present form under Ibn Mardanis in the 12th century, and King Alfonso X later made it his Murcian residence.
The Archaeological Museum of Murcia grew from the provincial museum created in 1864 and moved in 1953 to its building on Gran Vía Alfonso X, designed by Luis Moya Blanco and José Luis de León. Its galleries trace the region from the Palaeolithic to late Roman times.
The Puente de los Peligros, also called the Old Bridge, is a stone arch bridge over the Segura completed in 1742 and the oldest bridge left in Murcia. It replaced a bridge swept away by a flood in 1701, and its popular name comes from the shrine beside it to the Virgin of the Perils.
Floridablanca Garden is the oldest public garden in Murcia, laid out across the Segura in the Carmen district and given its present form in 1849. It honours the Count of Floridablanca, chief minister of Charles III and Charles IV, whose statue by Santiago Baglietto faces the Carmen church.
The Bando de la Huerta is the great day of Murcia's Spring Festival, held on the Tuesday after Easter, when many Murcians fill the streets in traditional huertano costume. It began in 1851 as a carnival parade, and the Spring Festival became a Fiesta of International Tourist Interest in 2012.
Holy Week in Murcia runs from the Friday of Sorrows to Easter Sunday, when 15 brotherhoods carry 97 processional floats on their shoulders in 17 processions. Its prized figures include those of Francisco Salzillo, and it was declared a Fiesta of International Tourist Interest in 2011.
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