Tag Archives: Virgin de la Fuensanta

Continuing Monday’s article on our 18 May 2022 arrival into Cartagena, Spain. As you’ll recall, we met up with our tour group and headed to an overlook high above Murcia and the surrounding Segura river valley. Dominating the top of this hill to the south of Murcia are Casa del Cabildo (also: Casa del Sacristán — House of the Sacristan), a Benedictine monastery, and the early 18th century Santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Fuensanta (Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Holy Fountain) Church (construction started in 1694). Today I’m going to concentrate on the church, including the interior, and the monastery.

As you can tell from the two photos above, Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fuensanta was built in the Baroque style. Not that Baroque is the only way to go in Europe. There are other great styles as well. As they say — if it ain’t Baroque, don’t nix it.

I know. Bad pun. Please forgive me as I take you inside for a look. The altar pictured below is a recent addition:

The original Baroque altar was destroyed by fire in 1936. This replacement altar was the result of a collaborative effort between Antonio Carrion Valverde and Nicolas Prados Lopez:

The blue-clad figure serving as the focal point of the altar is the Virgin of Fuensanta. Cradled in the crook of her left arm is, of course, the baby Jesus.

Time to look at some of the church’s stained glass:

Now let’s head back outside and take a look at the adjacent Benedictine monastery:

Next week we head into Murcia for more sightseeing and travel photography.

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)

Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas left Ibiza on 18 May 2022, and we arrived at our next destination the following day. What you will view this week and for the next several weeks (I estimate the next four) is Cartagena, Spain. Yes, five weeks is a long time to spend on one destination, but we did a lot during this stop. As I mentioned previously, this particular cruise offered up a fairly unusual itinerary featuring many destinations Ursula and I had not previously seen, and Cartagena is one of those. And as you can see in the photograph below, Vision was moored adjacent to the Cartagena Naval Base. Moored at the base was the submarine you see below, which I believe is one of Spain’s two remaining Agosta-class submarines, the Galerna:

At the port yet another tour awaited us, and for the rest of this week I’ll be showing you the first stop on this tour. We’re talking about Santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Fuensanta (Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fuensanta). And there is much more on this high hill overlooking Cartagena besides just the church. There is also a castle (Casa del Cabildo) and a Benedictine monastery (Monasterio Benedictinas Nuestra Señora de la Fuensanta).

This religious site sits high above the surrounding areas, and the views alone are worth the excursion. The vista below is northwest of the sanctuary. The municipality of Molina de Segura lies in the distance.

Looking further to the left gains you a view of Casa Espiritualidad Nuestra Señora de la Fuensanta (House of Spirituality of Our Lady of Fuensanta):

Don’t forget to glance down. If you do, you might miss this shot:

On Wednesday we’ll go inside the church and also stroll the grounds around the monastery. Until then, let’s just take in some additional views:

Слава Україні! (Slava Ukraini!)