In mid-August, the town of Teulada-Moraira holds a medieval market, which is very popular and well attended.
There are some 70 craft stalls, displaying long-forgotten skills and crafts now given a new lease of life. Whole families gather round to watch blacksmiths, engravers, silversmiths, wood carvers, lace makers and weavers producing traditional products to the delight of both young and old.
At the Teulada medieval market attention to detail is paramount; you'll find excellent food, items for the home, cosmetics and jewellery. You can buy regional cold meats made in the traditional way, such as longaniza sausages, cheese, sweets and pastries. There are even home-made drinks! Products related to bee-keeping are also popular at the medieval market; from natural beeswax candles to royal jelly, honey from different flowers, lip balms and so on.
Visitors can browse the natural products on sale or join in the educational activities which run all day: a minstrel reciting a poem, a jester playing with a child, a diabolo juggler and a fire eater amazing the crowds. What more could you ask for?
There's also a place for exotic products from far away lands: artisan chocolates with added spices, herbs to make infusions, different types of bread or liqueur made from forest fruits.
Special mention must go to the tin, copper, leather, straw and wooden goods such as signs, mirrors, belts, baskets, slippers, straps ribbons and espadrilles.
It's getting late, how about something to eat. You'll find something tasty here and at a good price. There are stalls with ovens or wood fired barbecues grilling ribs, steaks, chorizo criollo (local sausage) or morcilla (black pudding). There's even hot chocolate to dip your churros (fritters) or rosquillas (doughnuts).
In recent years the Teulada medieval market has made some very interesting additions such as falconry demonstrations, camel rides, shield making for kids, medieval music concerts, belly dancing and blacksmithing and pottery workshops. You'll also find stalls selling clothes and medieval decorations such as embroidered cloth from the Alpujarras in the traditional Moorish style. Want to take a real treasure home?
A piece of advice: don't go home before you've tried a typical Moorish tea. You'll find teashops dotted amongst the stalls.
A week of festivities, gala parades, conquests and reconquests bring the streets of Moraira to fever pitch, coinciding as they do with the start of the tourist season and the celebration of one of this Alicante town's most deeply rooted festivals: the Moors and Christians Festival.
The quintessential party of the town of Dénia, which has now been adopted by other nearby towns in the Valencia region. The fact is that the bullfighting tradition and the Mediterranean Sea make the perfect match in the summertime.
Having a beer, enjoying a tapa or buying a small gift beside the sea, is the idea behind the gastronomical and produce fair that Moraira organizes each year at the beginning of May.
