Preindustrial Sugar Cane Museum

About Preindustrial Sugar Cane Museum

The Museo Preindustrial de la Caña de Azúcar in Motril, on Granada's Costa Tropical, is built over the excavated remains of the Ingenio de la Palma, one of the town's most important sugar mills from the late Middle Ages onwards. The mill is first documented in the late 15th century; over time almost everything except the house, La Casa de la Palma, disappeared.

Its rediscovery was an accident. In 1989, levelling work behind the house turned up large carved stones, and an excavation led by Professor Malpica uncovered walls and other parts of the mill. The town hall restored the site between 1996 and 1998, and the museum was fully fitted out by December 2002.

The visit follows the stages of making sugar, from the milling area and press room to the boiling and refining rooms where sugar loaves were formed. The highlight is a wooden press mounted on the original stone structures, and there is also a two-mace hydraulic mill rebuilt from documents of 1641. Cane was grown commercially around Motril until 2006.

Admission is cheap, but tourism listings give no fixed hours, so phone ahead. It works in any season; in July and August, go in the morning and keep the afternoon for the beach.

Preindustrial Sugar Cane Museum in pictures

What you’ll find

• Museum exhibitionExhibition visitTicket
• Museum galleriesMuseum visitTicket
• Museum guideGuided tourBook

Nearby places to visit

The closest beach is Playa Motril (3 km), better known as Playa de Poniente, a broad stretch of coarse sand and gravel with a palm-lined promenade west of the port. Golfers will find the Playa Granada course, Los Moriscos Club de Golf (4 km), a flat seafront layout with sugar cane lining the fairways. East of the port, Playa de Torrenueva Costa (6 km) is a dark-sand town beach below an old watchtower. Inland, the Olive Oil Museum (8 km) at Vélez de Benaudalla shows oil-making machinery from 1927, another chapter in the area's farming history.