La Safor’s best-kept secret,, the monastery was under lock and key for seven centuries until the Regional Government invested 42,000 euros in restoring it and opening it up to the public. An untapped corner of the region’s heritage, locals flocked to see the monastery in the summer when its doors first reopened. The complex encompasses the bell tower, with 17th-century blue and white carvings covering the façade; a gothic church with Baroque elements acquired during a previous renovation in the 18th century; a cloister with red Mudéjar arches resembling the architecture of the Córdoba mosque; a garden and the sala capitular, where a tomb houses the remains of Prince Juan and Princess Blanca of Aragón, children of the mediaeval Duke Alfonso el Viejo. It is accessed via a picturesque walkway flanked with banana trees that leads to the front door of the walled-in grounds, over which is a carved stone coat of arms dedicated to Alfonso of Aragón, and on entering, visitors will come across a small farmstead in ruins that was originally a Morisco settlement.

Sant Jeroni de Cotalba’s gardens are a tranquil, secluded Eden, sympathetically designed with a small man-made lake thickly flanked by willow trees and rushes. Water flows into the lake from the Batlamala spring some five kilometres away via an aqueduct constructed in the 14th century to combat problems with drought