Category Archives: Museums

Day out, Family, Museums, Nature, Things to do

The Salt Museum

The Salt Museum is located in a former salt factory within the Nature Reserve. As well as learning about the salt extraction process and its history, this museum gives a lot of useful information on the Nature Reserve, from where a route can be followed to observe Flamingos, Marbled Teals, Common Shelducks, Little Egrets, Caspian Gulls, Black-winged Stilts…
This beautiful Nature Reserve, protected since 1988 and recognized as a “Special Important Birds Area”, has been included in the list of “North African and European Humid Areas”. Stretching over 2,496 hectares, this wetland managed to survive thanks to the setting up of salt flats at the end of the last century.

Salt extraction is the main economic activity in this area and, to a great extent, makes up the current ecosystem. The salt flats work this way: seawater flows into a circuit of ponds to get a gradual salt concentration as a consequence of evaporation. Mediterranean salt flats are of great biological interest owing to the fact that water flow doesn’t stop in winter. The ponds remain flooded all year through, so the ecosystem stays unaffected. Birds feed on fishes and invertebrates that go into the salt flats while salt production benefits from mineral richness brought by the birds’ excrements.

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Family, Museums, Things to do

Santa Pola Maritime Museum

The Maritime Museum complex is located in the Castle-Fortress of Santa Pola. It has three different sections:

1. History and Archaeology (south wing)

It is presented as a monographic exhibition, focusing on the history of Santa Pola, with these main topics: Prehistoric era, the Iberians, the Roman Port and the history of the Castle.

2. Ethnography of the Sea and Fishing (North Wing)

Fishing has always been an important source of wealth merely by itself, but acquires industrial proportions when man gets a better knowledge of the sea and knows how to evaluate its resources and then exploit them. With the sea as a setting, seamen as the main actors and boats as the tools, these are the three substantial elements that shape Maritime History and make it an essential part of the history of mankind. This is reflected in the Maritime Museum and Fishing Museum, as the materials in the exhibition explain their relevance with the environment.

3. Historical background of Music and the Sea (east wing)

This section consists of five rooms dedicated to the history of music in Santa Pola and the archaeological remains the Cap de l’Aljub of Tower, the predecessor of the current castle-fortress.

The Tower of the Port del Cap de l’Aljub, was built in XIV century, This small defensive settlement gave rise to a country house (this term is used in the medieval documents to refer to this small village) with some shops to supply the soldiers and sailors. It also was used as a warehouse in order to protect the goods from being stolen, as well as from the inclement weather. Additionally, there was a church and an oven for baking bread.

The music section consists of three rooms, two dedicated to Alfosea, and Quislant teachers and one to the music bands as for example Banda Unión Musical, Mare de Deu de Loreto, La Colla’s Freu, La Coral Levantina and Coral Villa de Santa Pola, for their contribution to the culture and Santa Pola traditions.

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