Dolores combines sacred art with a Huerta shaped by water management. This offers two concrete ways to plan a trip: the artworks in the parish church and the history of a landscape transformed into cultivated Huerta through drainage. The picture is rounded out by regional artichokes, the FEGADO livestock fair and nearby El Hondo. You can prioritise culture, local history and nature according to your interests; if you are planning around events with fixed dates, it is worth checking the specific dates in advance.
Founding history and sacred art
The town’s history goes back to 1715, when Dolores was founded as part of a settlement project associated with Cardinal Belluga. The theatrical “1715” heritage route presents the origins, customs and ways of life of the first settlers. If you would like to include this route in your trip, check in advance whether a date is available during your stay.
The Parish Church of Our Lady of Sorrows is an 18th-century building with high-quality Rococo interior decoration. It houses an image of Our Lady of Sorrows created by Francisco Salzillo between 1743 and 1745, as well as a sculpture of Saint Paschal Baylon made by Roque López in 1786. The works differ in their subjects, artists and dates of creation, offering two distinct ways to explore the church’s sacred art.
The Museo de la Huerta presents the history and ethnology of the town. It complements the church’s artworks by offering insight into local history and life in Dolores. To explore how the two subjects relate, you can consider the town’s founding, the art in the parish church and local history as different facets of the same place.
Huerta, artichokes and FEGADO
The Huerta of Dolores was created by draining wet soils and digging azarbes and canals. This history makes water management a key theme of the landscape. The Huerta is also where Dolores artichokes are grown: they are cultivated there using traditional irrigation, and the salty soil gives them a distinctive, firmer texture. The landscape and its produce are thus connected through specific cultivation methods and soil characteristics.
The seventh edition of the festival marking the end of the artichoke season, held in 2025, featured dishes and showcooking, an artichoke burger feast, cooking workshops and a cycling tour through the Huerta of Dolores. The programme for this edition brought together the culinary side of the artichoke and a tour of the cultivated landscape. This is a look back at the programme for that specific festival, not information about dates for future editions.
FEGADO, the Dolores livestock fair, is also part of the town’s events calendar. It has been recognised as an event of regional tourist interest since 2019. The programme for the 2026 edition included a national market for selected breeding livestock, equestrian competitions in classical dressage, Vaquera dressage and Alta Escuela, a national farriery gathering and dog workshops. The main competitions and demonstrations take place at night. If you are considering travelling for FEGADO, check the dates and schedule for the specific edition.
Enjoy nature around El Hondo
The El Hondo Nature Park is located near Dolores. It can be reached from the town via cycling routes through the Huerta of the Vega Baja. The protected habitat offers a different focus from local history and the agricultural landscape: threatened bird species found there include the marbled teal, white-headed duck, ferruginous duck and red-knobbed coot. This means the surroundings of Dolores offer clearly distinct themes for trip planning: cultural history, Huerta and protected nature.
Discover more destinations: La Murada, El Tosalet, Pilar De La Horadada, Salinas, La Nucia, Benifato, La Vall De Gallinera, MonĂłvar
For the broader travel overview: Alicante.
