2 – 4 February 2024 (dates not confirmed yet)
When: Usually, the first weekend in February.
Where: Orihuela, Spain
Map: Orihuela on Google Maps
Official website: orihuelaturistica.es/orihuela/
Hotels: Hotels in Orihuela
The town Orihuela, not to be confused with the beach resort of Orihuela Costa on the Mediterranean, is 60 kilometres from Alicante.
Orihuela’s unique is the medieval town centre with a cathedral, palaces, churches and abbeys.
These marvellous and well-preserved buildings form a natural stage for one of the biggest festivals in town: the Medieval Market.
It’s a great medieval festival with hundreds of stalls over three kilometres.
In February, the first weekend, Orihuela turns the clock back for hundreds of years and hosts a festival that brings back life as it was in the Middle Ages.
The Market covers a large area beginning at the cathedral with countless stalls selling food and drink, trinkets, artefacts, jewellery and clothes.
Between meanders, musicians, drummers and groups are parading in ever more fanciful outfits and entertaining visitors with their performances.
At midday, you find some shows outside the town hall.
Nobody needs to go hungry at this fair.
A popular attraction is suckling pigs roasting on a spit.
Vegetarians can indulge in helpings from roasted vegetables prepared with potato slices in huge, flat pans, similar to those used for making paella.
Stonemasons demonstrate their skills, bakers and pastry cooks, shoemakers and weavers.
You can buy bread with nuts and raisins, cakes and sweets, spices, cheeses and sausages, wine and olive oil.
You can still see the Arabic past in Spain.
Therefore you’ll also find a bazaar, complete with camels, and you may also see a belly dancer dancing down the street with her musicians.
Hotel Boutique Palacio de Tudemir is a popular four stars hotel in the centre of Orihuela and an excellent location for the medieval market.
Good reviews from its guests.
Orihuela is 60 kilometres from Alicante and it can be a nice daytrip to Orihuela.
It’s about one hour to drive by car.
You can also travel by train and it takes a little over one hour from Alicante.
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