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San Javier
«San Javier acoge cada verano un conocido festival internacional de jazz.»San Javier hosts a well-known international jazz festival every summer.
San Javier overlooks the Mar Menor, the large saltwater lagoon separated from the Mediterranean by a strip of sand over twenty kilometres long. The municipality includes part of that strip, La Manga, and hosts the airport and the general air academy, which have marked its development throughout the 20th century.
Did you know
Jazz around here since 1969.
Since 1969, the city has hosted a very famous international festival dedicated entirely to jazz music every summer.
How they talk in San Javier
«Mar Menor» and «caldero» are terms that recur constantly in local speech because they define geography and cuisine. The accent shares the aspiration of the final «s» of the coastal Murcian dialect.
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 San Javier
The mud of the Mar Menor
In the salt flats, people smear themselves with black mud, wait for it to dry in the sun and then wash in the lagoon. Murcians do it, not visitors: you go on purpose, with an old towel.
«Vamos a darnos lodos.» — Let's go and get some mud treatment.
The «Patrulla Águila» above your head
The seven arrows of the air force practise in the sky above the lagoon almost every week: from the promenade you can see the acrobatics without paying anything and without knowing when beforehand.
Two seas in twenty minutes
The Mar Menor is warm and still, the Mediterranean on the other side of the strip is cold and open: you go from one to the other by crossing a road.
«De un mar al otro hay veinte minutos.» — From one sea to the other it takes twenty minutes.
What to eat in San Javier
Caldero del Mar Menor
Rice cooked in rockfish broth, orange and dry, with alioli on the side.
Dorada a la sal
Sea bream cooked under a crust of coarse salt, broken at the table in front of you.
Huevas de mújol
Salted and dried mullet roe, sliced thinly and dressed with oil.
Michirones
Dried broad beans stewed with ham, chorizo and chilli.
Festivals in San Javier
Fiestas de San Francisco Javier
between the end of November and the beginning of December
The patron saint leaves the church and the lagoon remains still behind: it is the winter festival, when the tourists are not there.
What to see in San Javier
Mar Menor
The largest saltwater lagoon in Europe, closed off from the Mediterranean by a strip of sand twenty-one kilometres long.
La Manga
The strip of sand between the two seas, a hundred metres wide in some places.
Academia General del Aire
The military air force academy, with the museum and historic aircraft.
Santiago de la Ribera
The promenade on the lagoon, with wooden piers and the houses of Murcian holidaymakers.
Where San Javier comes from
On the shore of the lagoon
Roman era
The Mar Menor
The lagoon has been used for salt and fishing since ancient times.
18th century
The village
The settlement was born around the church, in the middle of the fields that descend to the lagoon.
1836
The municipality
It separates from Murcia and becomes a municipality in its own right.
1943 → today
Aviation
The general air academy opens: the city grows around the airport.
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