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Alcantarilla
«Alcantarilla guarda una noria tradicional gigante para el riego.»Alcantarilla keeps a traditional giant waterwheel for irrigation.
Alcantarilla borders Murcia directly to the west and is one of the most densely populated municipalities in the region despite its small size. It preserves the large wooden waterwheel that used to lift water from the Segura to irrigate the fields, along with a museum that explains how it works and the life of the huerta.
Did you know
The waterwheel turns since 1400s.
The historic waterwheel of the aqueduct, dating back to the 15th century, is one of the largest still operating in the region.
How they talk in Alcantarilla
The aspiration of the final «s» and the vocative «acho» are normal in informal speech. «Acequia» and «noria» are not abstract words here: they belong to the historical landscape of the huerta.
acho
Hey; friend; boy, as a call or interjection. In informal speech it calls the interlocutor or introduces surprise, protest, complicity, and other reactions according to the intonation.
Everyday life in Alcantarilla
The wheel still turns
The wooden noria lifts the water of the Segura without any engine, and you can hear it turning. Passers-by stop to watch it: it is a work tool, not a monument.
«La noria sigue girando.» — The wheel still turns.
The «barraca» in the museum
The Museo de la Huerta has reassembled the house of reeds and mud in which people lived here until seventy years ago, with the tools inside. Many local visitors recognise their grandparents' house in it.
«Así se vivía aquí hace setenta años.» — This is how people lived here seventy years ago.
Attached to Murcia
Between Alcantarilla and the capital there is no countryside in between: you pass from one to the other without noticing, and many inhabitants work there and sleep here.
What to eat in Alcantarilla
Zarangollo
Courgettes and onions stewed slowly and bound with egg, the dish of the huerta par excellence.
Michirones
Dried broad beans stewed with ham and chorizo, served piping hot in an earthenware pot.
Pastel de carne
Puff pastry pie with meat, hard-boiled egg and chorizo, to be eaten with your hands.
Paparajotes
Lemon leaves in batter, fried and sugared. You hold the leaf by the stem and do not eat it.
Festivals in Alcantarilla
Fiestas de Mayo
in May
The «Bruja», a puppet several metres high, is burned after a parade of floats that the town prepares all year round.
What to see in Alcantarilla
La Rueda
The wooden water wheel, eight metres in diameter, which lifts the water of the Segura to irrigate the fields. It still turns.
Museo de la Huerta
A museum made of houses: the «barraca» of reeds and mud, the tools, the courtyard with orange trees.
Iglesia de San Pedro Apóstol
The baroque parish church, with the tower that can be seen from the whole plain.
Where Alcantarilla comes from
The name means «the little bridge»
Muslim era
Al-qantara
The Arabic name means «the little bridge»: from there, corrupted, comes Alcantarilla.
14th century
The wheel
The first water wheel is built to lift the water of the Segura onto the fields.
1266
The conquest
It passes to Castile; the huerta continues to function as before.
20th century → today
The belt
The growth of Murcia welds it to the capital: today they are attached.
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