What to see
Orihuela's cultural heritage has so much to offer that we recommend taking a look at the town's website in order to determine what we would like to visit and in what order: http://www.orihuelaturistica.es . In fact, just having a walk through the old quarter and trying some of the most typical dishes is a great experience in itself. However, we should not leave Orihuela without having visited the Miguel Hernández House-Museum, on the street of the same name (also known as Calle Arriba).
What to eat
As we said before, the town of Orihuela is strongly linked to its most representative figure in recent history: Miguel Hernández, who said that "Hunger is the most important thing to know: to be hungry is the first lesson we learn.".
What is now clear is that the inhabitants of Orihuela have managed to "satisfy" that first lesson almost to perfection. Traditional local dishes include the cocido con pelotas (meatball stew); the pollo en pepitoria (chicken in a vegetable and bread sauce); the guisado de pavo (turkey stew); the paella huertana or arroz y jardín (chicken and vegetable paella); the arroz clarico (meat, vegetable and rice stew); the arroz de los tres puñaos (rice with lentils and vegetables) or the cucorrones (rice with chickpeas and vegetables); the tortillas paisanas (potato and vegetable omelette); the trigo picao (wheat, chickpea and vegetable stew); the migas con chocolate, con uva, or con melon (breadcrumbs with chocolate, grapes or melon), the migas con sardinas (breadcrumbs with roasted sardines) and, of course, the most popular dish in the area: the arroz y costra (baked meat, egg and rice dish). Don't forget to check out the very traditional and high-quality cured meats and salted fish.
The wide range of confectionery products available plays an important role in the local cuisine, too. Most of these products were originally made by nuns that lived in the multiple convents that can be found in town (in Orihuela, desserts made by nuns are known as "repostería conventual"), but became so popular that are made in most local bakeries nowadays. Some of the best-known local specialties are the Pasteles de Gloria (also known popularly as "nun's breasts"), the tortadas de almendra (almond sponge cake) and the almojábanas (a type of biscuit).
Did you know?
The village of Hurchillo was actually the first location of the town we know as Orihuela nowadays. Until the 17th century, the base of the Orchello mountain held the remains of what most likely was a Greek settlement. The village's original population moved away and the new location they chose was first named Orcellis. This changed into Orihuela many years later.
According to the inhabitants of Torremendo, the village is named after a Moor or a black man called Mendo, who used to live in one of the caves there (now covered by the La Pedrera reservoir), next to a big tower.
Miguel Hernández was born in 1910 in Orihuela, where he began his studies at the local Jesuit school. He had to drop out shortly after in order to work as a shepherd, taking care of sheep and delivering milk. In the 1930s, he moved to Madrid, where he collaborated with José María Cossio on the writing of his bullfighting encyclopedia Los Toros, and he became acquainted with other poets like the famous Chilean author Pablo Neruda, and the Spanish writers Rafael Alberti and Luis Cernuda, amongst others. He participated actively in the Spanish Civil War and tried to leave the country after that, but he got arrested at the Portuguese border. He was first sentenced to death and later on his sentence was commuted to thirty years in prison, which he couldn't serve because he died of tuberculosis in 1942 at the Adult Correctional Facility in Alicante, exactly 75 years ago.