Laguna de Torrevieja

The pink salt lake south of town — its extraordinary colour comes from Dunaliella salina algae and halobacteria, and salt has been harvested here commercially since the 18th century.

The Laguna de Torrevieja is one of the most visually surprising places in Spain. The lake turns pink — sometimes a pale blush, sometimes an outright bubblegum — because of two microorganisms that thrive in the extremely salty water: the algae Dunaliella salina and the halobacteria that live alongside it. The more intense the evaporation in hot dry weather, the saltier the water becomes, and the pinker the lake. On a clear day in late summer, with the flamingo-pink water reflecting a blue sky, it looks like something from another planet. The lake is one of the saltiest bodies of water in Europe, approaching the salinity levels of the Dead Sea.

This is not a museum piece. The lake has been commercially harvested for salt since the 18th century under a royal concession, and the workings are still fully active — you can see the salt extraction machinery, the evaporation pans, and the bright white salt mountains piled along the shore. The contrast between industrial infrastructure and surreal natural colour is part of what makes the place memorable. A walking path runs along the northern shore of the lake, accessible from the edge of town, and offers the best views of the pink water and the salt mounds. The full circuit of the lake is long (around 14 kilometres), but the northern section near town takes an hour or so and is enough to see the lake at its best. Go in the morning for the best light.

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A story
For centuries the salt from Laguna de Torrevieja travelled north and west across Spain and the Atlantic. Its most important journey was to the Basque Country and Galicia, where it was used to cure the Atlantic cod — bacalao — that Iberian fishermen were hauling from the waters off Newfoundland and Greenland. Without salt, bacalao could not survive the weeks-long voyage home. Without bacalao, the Lenten and fasting traditions of Catholic Spain would have looked very different. The pink lake, in other words, helped shape what Spain ate. The fishermen and the salt merchants who ran this trade grew wealthy enough to build the grand townhouses and Casino building that still line Torrevieja's waterfront today.

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