Archena

Dolomite and Marl

Whenever I visit a new place, I like to see the art, architecture and archaeology, but the geology always seems to interest me most – and my trip to Archena was no exception.

A view from the museum

Picked up in the morning by Gloria, we sped out of Murcia and it wasn’t long before we encountered a dry, barren landscape where various commercial buildings were scattered around randomly.

Seeing a highly dissected landscape, with pale colours, I knew that we were passing through relatively young rocks but I didn’t know much more about the geology that I was looking at here, and so it was a great experience for me.

Arriving in Archena, I was very impressed by the geology that is quite clearly exposed here. The River Segura and its tributaries cut deeply into soft gypsiferous marls and, where the harder, overlying dolomites remain, there are some spectacular peaks. At the museum, I learned a great deal about the ancient history of this part of Spain, the importance of water to power its former industries, and the role that it played during the Spanish Civil war.

 The Balneario de Archena

Walking along the river towards the Balneario de Archena, the lush tropical looking vegetation in the river valley provided such a contrast to the landscape that I had seen on the way to Archena. 

Although unable to look around the spa itself, I was surprised to discover remains of the old Roman spa that have been recently excavated and which possess considerable archaeological importance in the region.

Bar Casino del Balneario de Archena

Archena has been described as being the ‘Oasis of Murcia’ and, with the temperature reaching 29 degrees that afternoon, I was glad to be in the leafy shade when we stopped at the Casino for a drink and tapas. 

With its giant outdoor chess board and a large family of feral cats, which came over to us as soon as the previous visitors to the garden had disappeared, it was really quite surreal. 

 

Having spent 4 nights and a couple of days talking with Mari Carmen, my Spanish had started to improve considerably but the real test of my progress came, very unexpectedly, when we were collected and taken to Gloria’s house, where we had lunch with her Spanish speaking family. 

Thrown in at the deep end, I happily discussed the food, the wine, their lemon grove, chickens and, especially, the mountains that we could see in the distance - and the giant oyster and other fine fossil specimens that Gloria had collected there. I left with a jar of homemade marmalade, which is the best that I have tasted, and looking out of the window of the bus on the way home, I noticed that the late afternoon temperature was still 29 degrees.

A panoramic view in Archena