10 reasons to visit Murcia

Murcia is often skipped. Too quiet, too unknown, too little “Instagram-famous” to be on everyone’s bucket list. We soon noticed this when we started talking about our apartment here – most people barely knew the region, even though they knew everything about Barcelona or Valencia. Exactly that made us curious, and in the meantime we have come to love it so much that we go there several times a year. These are ten reasons why Murcia should surprise you.

Where many Spanish coastal regions are full of high-rise buildings and endless rows of sunbeds, the Costa Cálida still feels like a secret. At Calblanque, for example – one of our absolute favourites – you’ll find golden dunes, crystal clear waters, and nothing else. No beach bars, no umbrella rental, just nature in its purest form. The same feeling can be found in smaller bays along the entire coast: beaches where you are sometimes almost alone, even in high season.

Cartagena is for us one of the most underrated cities in all of Spain. You just walk through a shopping street, and suddenly you come face to face with a complete Roman theater – only rediscovered in 1988, hidden for centuries under the modern city. Not a closed museum piece behind glass, but history that is literally intertwined with the daily life of the city.

If you go to Andalusia or Catalonia, you will get more or less the same classics everywhere. Murcia has its own cuisine, with dishes that you hardly find elsewhere in Spain: zamburiñas, the typical marinera with anchovies or shrimp, and as an absolute surprise, paparajotes for dessert – fried lemon leaves in a sweet dough. Sounds strange, tastes great.

The Real Casino de Murcia is perhaps the biggest surprise in the entire region. From the outside, it looks like just a building between the shops of Calle Trapería. Step inside, and you suddenly find yourself in an Arabic patio, inspired by the Alhambra, with tens of thousands of gold leaf sheets on the walls. Nobody expects this here, and that makes it so special.

Sierra Espuña, Barranco de Gebas, Valle de Ricote – this is not a region of busy, landscaped hiking trails full of signs and tourist buses. We often walked for hours at Director’s Bay-like places in the interior without meeting anyone. For those who love real, quiet nature, that is exactly what makes Murcia so special.

In March, rural Cieza turns into a sea of pink and white. Hundreds of hectares of peach, apricot and nectarine trees come into bloom at the same time – a natural phenomenon that we only discovered ourselves when we had been coming here for a while, and that we have wanted to see again every year since.

In Balneario de Archena, you will literally bathe in the same spring that has been drawing people to this place since the 5th century BC – first Iberian tribes, later the Romans, and today tourists like us. Few places in Europe give you such a sense of continuity while just relaxing in warm water.

Caravaca de la Cruz is one of only five holy cities in the world, along with Jerusalem and Rome. Moratalla is home to more than half of all the rock paintings of the entire region of Murcia. Each village we visited turned out to have its own, specific story – never just “another nice Spanish village”, always something that sets it apart from the rest.

The calm, shallow waters of the Mar Menor, free mud baths on the salt flats of San Pedro, a zoo with water park in one – Murcia is one of the easiest regions we know to travel with a family. Our son tests everything himself, and so far there has been little that didn’t appeal to him.

This is perhaps the most important reason. Where other Spanish regions have been on everyone’s bucket list for a long time, Murcia still feels like something you discover for yourself, instead of something you just “must” have seen. Exactly that feeling is why we keep coming back to this, year after year.

Murcia is not a region that you “tick off” in one visit. It is a place that can be discovered layer after layer – a beach here, a village there, a story that you only hear when you really take the time for it. We didn’t know what we were missing until we came here for the first time. And honestly? We are still not done with it.

Convinced to go and see for yourself? Check out our full guide to Murcia for all the practical info, or get further inspired by our other articles on the region. When do you book your ticket with Vueling?