The most famous church in Spain has to be La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, right? But in the little town of Novelda, just half an hour’s drive inland from Alicante, you’ll find a remarkable church which is almost a mini-Sagrada.
Yes, it’s a fraction of the size of the real thing, but you can almost imagine Gaudí practising on this before trading up to the Sagrada Familia.
He didn’t of course. The Santuario de Maria Magdalena was built by a local Novelda man, José Sala Sala. He wasn’t even an architect – he was an engineer by trade – but he was certainly heavily influenced by Gaudí and the modernist movement.
And his project, unlike La Sagrada Familia, is actually finished. Though it did take nearly 30 years or so from start of work in 1918 to completion in 1946.
It’s an astonishing piece of work, sitting on a high crag just north of Novelda, dominating this part of the Vinalopó valley.
But there’s more!
Remarkably, El Santuario is not the only modernist gem in Novelda. There are some really rather wonderful modernista buildings scattered around the town centre, the absolute star of the show being the fabulous Casa-Museo Modernista. Which happily is open to the public.
Much more on that later in this post – but first, back to El Santuario.
The church is built from roughly hewn stone – there’s none of the smoothly polished façade that you see on most Spanish churches. It’s partly this texture that gives the Santuario its Gaudí-esque look.
Stone is what they do around here. Marble quarries are the main driver of Novelda’s economy and you can see huge square blocks of the stuff lying waiting to be cut and polished outside factories all around the town.
Pretty much everything in the Santuario is stone – from the 25 metre high twin towers to much of the church organ inside. There are some modernist ceramics set into the stonework which enhance the Gaudí look.
The floor plan is based on the shape of the pot which Saint Mary Magdalene – the patron saint of Novelda – used to anoint the feet of Christ.
El Castillo de la Mola
El Santuario shares the site with another much older building, the Castillo de la Mola. The Moors first fortified the place and clearly knew what they were doing. You don’t have to be a military genius to see that in its day, the castle would have dominated the Vinalopó valley below.
El Castillo de Novelda is just one of a trail of spectacular castles in the Vinalopó valley. To follow La Ruta de los Castillos del Vinalopó, tap the link here.
Entrance to both castle and Santuario is free and it’s easy to park nearby. The Santuario is just a short stroll up the hill. Check opening times to see inside the church here.
More modernista classics in town
I’ve mentioned the Casa-Museo Modernista already earlier in this post. It’s simply unmissable. Don’t leave town without seeing it.
Put it this way – it would be a very cool building even in Barcelona, the crucible of modernism in Spain. But here in the rather sleepy town of Novelda, it’s a bit of a show-stopper.
It was built by a rather remarkable Novelda woman, Antonia Navarro Mira. Modernism was the height of fashion in the late 19th/early 20th century and Antonia got the modernista bug on her travels around Europe.
A widow after only eight years of marriage, she’d inherited a fortune from her father and was a serious businesswoman in her own right, so she could afford to buy the best.
She hired an architect, Pedro Cerdán Martinez (who also designed the spectacular Casino de Murcia), and got to work. The house was finished in 1905 and it’s amazing. No detail is too small; even the light switches are modernist, each with a different look to match the decor of every room.
And the house is immaculately restored too. It looks for all the world as if La Pichocha has just popped out for a business meeting or a spot of shopping and will be back shortly.
It wasn’t all about style either. This was a woman who liked her home comforts. The house featured all the latest mod-cons of the time – internal plumbing, bathrooms, electricity and central heating.
Around the same time, she also bought and renovated in modernist style another building just along the street, this time for her daughter Carmen and her husband. It’s now the Gomez-Tortosa Cultural Centre and Novelda’s tourist office, so you can go in and wander around for free.
Antonia wasn’t the only person in Novelda’s elite building their houses in the new modernista style. Novelda at the time was prosperous and growing fast, made rich by saffron and vine cultivation, the arrival of the railway, and the marble quarries.
So just round the corner from La Casa-Museo is the Casal Fester, with plenty of modernista features on its facade, plus a striking art-nouveau piece of street art on its side wall.
Novelda’s Casino, where the town’s upper-crust would meet and mingle back in the day, is also built in the modernista style. Stop off for a cold beer in the Casino gardens (they’re not so fussy about who they let in these days!).
And there are quite a few other modernista facades in nearby streets – the tourist office will give you a map of where they all are.
For details on visiting the Casa-Museo Modernista, click or tap here. You’re not really supposed to take pictures inside the building, but whoever shot this video got away with it – take a look for a few highlights!
More modernism!
If modernisme is your thing, try visiting the port city of Cartagena, just over an hour to the south. It has a very cool collection of modernista buildings scattered across the historic centre and up the road in La Unión. See my post here for more.
More places to visit nearby
- The last secret HQ of the Spanish government in the Civil War.
- Explore the castles of the Vinalopó valley
- Walk up to the majestic Tibi Dam. Or try the Elche dam walk.
- Try the most famous wine you’ve never heard of – fondillón
© Guy Pelham