Some news arrives by email. This one arrived by train.
Renfe, Spain’s national railway, publishes a magazine for the members of its Club Renfe frequent-traveller programme — a magazine that goes out to the people who criss-cross Spain by high-speed rail. And in its section Merece un viaje — “It deserves a trip” — the current issue dedicates its pages to our city: “Manises, el corazón de la sabia cerámica” — Manises, the heart of wise ceramics — with text by Mario Suárez.
You can read the original article here: “Manises, el corazón de la sabia cerámica” — Revista Club Renfe (in Spanish).
And there, in the middle of the story of Manises, is our house.
The company our city keeps
The article opens with the company Manises keeps: pieces of its golden-lustre ceramics — the most celebrated of late-medieval pottery, brought here by Andalusí potters in the early 14th century — are built into the walls of the Papal Palace of Avignon and the Monastery of El Escorial. You can find Manises ware in the Louvre, the Victoria & Albert and the Metropolitan Museum.
Closer to home, the piece visits the Museo de Cerámica de Manises, where director Teresa Segura explains that auction houses around the world sell Manises pieces for two to four hundred thousand euros — and call the museum to certify where they came from. It covers the Bienal Internacional de Cerámica de Manises, which just held its 17th edition with a record 486 works by 345 artists and designers from 49 countries. And it names the ten artisan workshops still active in town, from Arturo Mora and his metallic lustre to the Fábrica La Cerámica Valenciana of José Gimeno.
This is the neighbourhood our house lives in. Not metaphorically — literally. Carrer de Sant Joan, twenty minutes from Valencia, in a city that has been shaping, painting and firing clay for seven centuries.
What they wrote about the house
The article tells the story of how we found Casa Mayólica three years ago, looking for an iconic place to live — and found a 150-year-old villa in the very centre of Manises, whose last owners were the Mora family, one of the historic ceramic dynasties of the city. From the bathrooms to the patio, the journalist writes, the house is an homage to Valencian loza and its past: modernist Nolla mosaics, centuries-old ceramics in cobalt blue.
The piece quotes Lorenzo on what it means to live here:
“We were looking for a house with charm, a place to be surrounded by art, by beauty… We’ve kept it just as it was — we’ve only renewed the electricity, for safety, and to help the house work as a museum.”
“It’s marvellous to see how the house has changed the way we live. We had to adapt to it, not the other way round. It’s like living in another era.”
That has always been our feeling about the house — that we didn’t renovate it, we joined it. It’s gratifying when a national publication sees it the same way.
Why this matters to us
Being featured in a travel magazine aimed at train travellers says something specific: Manises is no longer only a day trip for ceramic specialists. It is being written up, alongside Valencia, as a destination — a place you point a high-speed train at.
We’ve felt that shift ourselves. Visitors arrive from the Ceràmica Oberta route, from design and architecture circles, from film crews scouting centuries-old interiors. Now the Club Renfe magazine tells its readers the same thing we tell every guest: the house, the museum, the workshops, the market — this city deserves a trip.
Getting here (the article’s own advice)
The magazine closes with a practical box — Mejor si vas en tren (“Better if you go by train”): València is connected to Madrid by 15 daily high-speed trains, with direct AVE services from Castilla y León and Andalucía, and Euromed trains along the coast from Catalonia and Alicante. From Valencia, Manises is a short metro or taxi ride away — get off at Manises station and Carrer de Sant Joan is a five-minute walk.
We confess we like the framing. The house is 150 years old; the train that brings you here is a little younger. Both will get you here in comfort.
Come and see the house they wrote about
The house opens for private visits through The Experience, for public events — where the little ceramic market opens alongside — and the House Museum can be visited on request. Read about the house or contact us to arrange a visit.
Casa Mayolica — Carrer de Sant Joan, Manises, City of Ceramic Where history meets hospitality — and now, where the railway magazine sends its readers.
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