Museo del Mar de Santa Pola

The Museo del Mar occupies the Castillo-Fortaleza, built in the 16th century to defend the harbour, right in the centre of Santa Pola. Open since 1982, it traces the municipality’s history with the sea as its thread, from the earliest settlements to today’s fishing port.

What you can see

The archaeology rooms bring together Roman mosaics from the Casa Romana del Palmeral and tools from an old salt-fish factory, alongside pottery, glass and personal items from the Iberian and Roman periods. Another section is devoted to navigation, with sextants, chronometers, nautical charts, liquid compasses and barometers that show how local fishermen found their way before electronics.

Among the more curious pieces in the navigation room are a propeller log for measuring a ship’s speed and a watch-keeping recorder clock, instruments once standard aboard the town’s fishing boats well into the 20th century.

A third room explains the fortification of the coast through models of the castle itself and of the watchtowers scattered across the municipality, such as the Torre Atalayola, setting them within the defensive system that protected the bay from Barbary raids between the 16th and 18th centuries.

The museum takes a couple of hours to see and makes a good choice on a windy or very hot day, since it mixes the castle’s cool interior with harbour views from its walls. It ranks among the province’s notable museums and can be paired with a visit to the Santa Pola salt flats, a short walk from the centre, whose salt-making history also appears in the museum’s collections.