San Javier: the Mar Menor amid dunes and flamingos
Overlooking the Mar Menor, Europe's largest salt lagoon, San Javier remains the starting point for La Manga, a sandbar that separates the lagoon from the Mediterranean.
A car is useful to explore the Mar Menor, among dunes and flamingos.
The Mar Menor, a saltwater lagoon separated from the Mediterranean by a thin strip of sand, remains Europe's largest expanse of saltwater of this kind.
A few minutes away, La Manga del Mar Menor, a strip of land stretching over twenty kilometers, offers beaches on both the lagoon and Mediterranean sides.
Following the lagoon, you observe colonies of pink flamingos, which nest seasonally in the protected wetland zones around Mar Menor.
As evening arrives, San Javier's small harbors animate fish restaurants with views over the calm lagoon at sunset.
The Mar Menor, thanks to its warmer and saltier water than the open Mediterranean, is traditionally used for therapeutic mud treatments, exploiting sediment-rich mineral deposits on the lagoon floor.
La Manga del Mar Menor, developed for tourism starting in the 1960s, offers the unusual opportunity to choose each day between the calm waters of the lagoon and the waves of the open Mediterranean a few dozen meters away.
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