A confession. I find tapas in Spain a bit humdrum. I've tried the pintxos of San Sebastian and the bars of Barcelona, but much of what I've eaten is just dull - lacklustre salty pastes on stale bread, harsh olives, dry cheese, greasy ham - until, that is, I came to Murcia. Spanish chefs in the know acknowledge that Murcia is home to Spain's best tapas, a result of the city's location between some of the country's richest arable land and the Mediterranean. To the tourist however, Murcia is all but unknown. Everyone but me on the drink-flushed Ryanair flight was going to La Manga, the Miami-lite strip of hotels and theme pubs whose witless architecture blights the Mar Menor lagoon.
Driving the 50 clicks inland to Murcia, equally dispiriting are the gated golf resorts - designed, perhaps, to keep Crimplene-clad golfers prisoner - that are being put up on the arid plain. Murcia has 300 days of sun each year, and is so dry an environment one wonders whether water-hungry golf courses make the most sustainable of tourism initiatives. Anyway, I'm hungry, and here - seen below us through a pass in the low sierra - Murcia shows herself, a wide, low, raggedy, biscuity sprawl of a city, gazing contentedly over carefully planted fertile plains that melt away the miles to the heat-misty horizon.
Provincial Spanish culture - with its flowery courtesies, its honorifics observed, its petty pleasures, its perfumed languors, its pleasing dalliances, its children named Purificación and Immaculada, its sense of time slowly, carefully weighed - is alive, quietly proud and spectacularly well-fed. There are restaurants, of course, florid and overdone, and blue-rinsed cafes, some ethnic offerings, even a trendy El Bulli-influenced joint, but the food jewels here are tapas bars. Some of these are shiny and polished, some rough-cut; many are open from breakfast till midnight.
I have my tapas epiphany opposite the Episcopal palace. It is a feria weekend (one of many) and lots of people are dressed either as medieval Christians or Moors. Beneath their tea towel headdresses, the revellers' olive faces could be from either religious tradition, but the only race that's on is the sinking of cold cañas. These are glasses of Estrella Levante, the stellar local lager, and I'm necking mine quickly, accompanying plates of mussels at La Mejillonera.
To my left, the blowsy, campaniled cathedral; to my right, the bishop's palace, its great doors decorated with beaten copper cherubim - Catholic images executed in the Arabic style. I eat mussels with cumin and chilli, like you'd find in Morocco, and some with a lovely lemony sauce. This evening's son e lumière features the municipal saxophone and timpani orchestra.
Around the corner, behind not much of an entrance, Los Zagales ("The Kids") is a great old-school bar, its tapas displayed along the bar, plus a kitchen which sends out beautifully fried squid. Not the rubbery bland frozen rings variety, but little baby ones from the Mar Menor, all tentacley, crunchy and nice. There's a no smoking policy at Los Zagales, which doesn't include the paprika (from local noras peppers) which redly spots the fried quails' egg canapes. Under browning photos of football teams and bullfighters, I eat the first of many ensaladillas.
This Russian salad is the mark by which any Murcian bar is judged. A mix of tuna-mashed mayo and crunchy vegetables, great mounds of ensaladilla are everywhere. The locals (a friendly lot, pleased to see an interested foreigner) teach me to order mine marinera, piled on to a loopy breadstick and topped with a freshly cured anchovy. Crunch, bite, smooth, sweet and salt in one mouthful, and very good with more cañas. By now I'm caned, so retire early, mañana being another day.
Plaza de las Flores is the best place to start a tapas crawl. Opposite the Jesus funeral parlour, El Bolito serves sensational cazo - little goujons of Arab-spiced hake. By the florist next door is La Tapa, which has squashy seats and is slightly posey. They were doing a mean pumpkin rice dish last week, and great plates of ham, also available freshly carved at woody, buzzy, smoky Las Viandas around the corner. The Gran Bar between them detained me briefly, but I needed to weave along to Calle Rui Pérez. Here, Las Mulas is bright, clean and crammed-in busy. The ceiling-hung black-foot hams look like revue dancer's legs.
Across the alley, Pepico del Tio Ginés is scruffy, rough and brilliant fun: go for grilled vegetables, hunks of goat's cheese and belota - balls of salt cod bacalao. As everywhere, you order from the window and hang out outside, or cram inside and join the banter. Best of all, I loved Casa Perela. Piles of wild mushrooms decorate the bar (they come sauteed in olive oil with garlic shoots), and plates of boiled waxy potatoes with garlic-shouty ajo dip are yours for the pleasure. A suckling pig, tender enough to be carved with a plate, arrived, as did accessorise-it-yourself gazpacho.
The locals eat and drink all this, then go out for dinner. How, is beyond me. However, if you have the capacity to fill up more, I'll send you to the city limits, where lusty, loud Los Arroces de Segis serves paellas, the paddy-fields of Calasparra being down the road. At the door, there are great pyres of brushwood heating the paella pans.
On your table, starters of fried larguetta almonds and cheese, roasted peppers, and - no surprise - ensaladilla. Many cañas on, I'm speaking Spanish like a Russian, but somehow muddle through a huge pan of paella with rabbit and snails, by the end of which, I confess, I'm absolutely on my knees.
· Cerveceria La Mejillonera, Plaza Cardenal Belluga, 7. Los Zagales, Polo de Medina, 4. El Bolito, Plaza Santa Catalina 1. La Tapa, Plaza de Flores 12. Las Viandas, Via Pascual 2. Las Mulas, Calle Rui Perez 5. Pepico del Tío Ginés, Calle Rui Perez 4. Casa Perela, Calle Rui Perez 6. Los Arroces de Segis, Cltra. Santa Catalina (reservation essential +968 848 084). Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies to Murcia from East Midlands, Glasgow, Liverpool, Luton and Stansted. Hotel Zenit (0034 968 21 47 42, zenithoteles.com), doubles from €78.
