Look for the traditional multi-story house featuring a classic flat facade and simple balconies that blend quietly into the residential street.
We have just come from seeing the golden Treasure of Villena, but this next stop celebrates a treasure made of humble earth and clay. This is the Museo del Botijo, or the Jug Museum.
The story of this place is quite literally a love story about loneliness. It all began in nineteen-seventy with a single object... a drinking jug made of cork and metal that belonged to the founder's mother-in-law, Dolores. The founder, a man named Pablo Castelo Villaoz, placed this gift in a special spot in his home. But every time he looked at it, he felt a pang of sadness. He thought the jug looked... lonely.
To cure this solitude, Pablo decided to buy a few more jugs to keep the first one company. Well, that cure turned into what his family called a fever. Soon, he was rescuing jugs from all over the world-Russia, Turkey, Argentina. Just like our friend José María Soler, the postman who found the gold at our last stop, Pablo had a special eye for value where others saw only common things. He filled this house, which still preserves its original nineteen-hundreds kitchen and structure, with over twelve hundred examples.
You would not believe the shapes they take. Some look like people, others like animals, and some even mimic architecture. His passion was infectious. Once, a pilot from Aeroméxico visited and was so enchanted that he and Pablo shared a bottle of tequila right then and there to celebrate. Months later, a package arrived from Mexico with a new little jug, a gift from the pilot to the guardian of these treasures.
While most of these vessels are simple clay, Pablo did find his own version of gold. The crown jewels here are two eighteenth-century pieces from Manises, glowing with a metallic gold luster on white glass. They are rare masterpieces of pottery.
Pablo always said, These are not mine, they are everyone's. He turned his private home into a sanctuary for these forgotten objects so we could all enjoy them. Now, let's leave this intimate collection and walk to the open heart of the city at the Plaza de Santiago.
