Casa-Museo Ingeniero Mira, Guardamar del Segura

A museum commemorating the life and work of the man who saved Guardamar from being engulfed by the sand dunes

This small museum is dedicated to the man who saved Guardamar del Segura in the early twentieth century, when the advancing sand dunes threatened to engulf the town and condemn it to oblivion.

Francisco Mira Botella was a mountain engineer who came to Guardamar in 1896 to coordinate and oversee a vast reforestation program in the dunes in order to stabilize them, a task to which he was to devote the following 28 years. During his time in Guardamar he lived in the house which now houses both this museum and the tourist information office.

The front room on the ground floor is the tourist office, but the rest of the building is a museum which pays homage to Francisco Mira, detailing both his life and the reforestation program. Fascinating photographs preserve images of vast dunes dwarfing the tiny houses next to them and of local men and women toiling in the sun and planting pine trees in order to save their town, and in the first room of the exhibition is the camera with which many of the photos were taken.

On the first floor is the study of Dr Luis Rivera, who also lived in this house and is one of Guardamar’s most illustrious figures, and it is also possible to go out onto the small roof terrace to see the weather station which Francisco Mira used to collect information concerning temperature and rainfall in order to ensure the best success possible for his reforestation program.

Address: Plaza de la Constitución, 7, 03140 Guardamar del Segura
Telephone: 965 724488

Opening hours:
• Winter (16th September to 30th June): Monday to Saturday 10.00 to 15.00 and 17.00 to 19.00.
• Summer (1st July to 15th September): Monday to Saturday 10.00 to 14.30 and 18.00 to 21.00.

Entry:
The cost of a ticket to see both this museum and the nearby MAG archaeological museum is just 1€, and both visits are thoroughly recommended.
 

Further information about the municipality of Guardamar del Segura can be found in the dedicated Guardamar del Segura municipality section, accesed via the map box at the bottom of every page