Day Trip out to Sagunt

Today we had a day out of the city to a town about 30 minutes train ride towards Castillon.  We arrived about 11 o'clock into a rather drab looking town.  You could see this amazing medieval castle on the hill above, but no map to say how to get there.  We wandered around in circles in the narrow streets trying to find a way around, until a lovely old gentleman rescued us.  We obviously had that spaced out look on our faces of people searching for the castle, and he pointed us in the right direction.

By that point we were beginning to wonder why we had come to this town, which didn't seem to have any centre or anything of interest except the castle at the back which we couldn't get too.  But his help and some perserverence got us to the centre and what a lovely place it was.  Might suggest to the tourist office they put a map at the station.

Sagunt has Roman origins and there is a roman amphitheatre in front of the castle.  The castle is medieval and the walls a kilometre all the way around.

This is the entrance to the small Jewish quarter.

 Typical house

The roman amphitheatre has been restored and a modern backing has turned it into an arts space, where they hold plays and music in the summer.  It would be great.

Views into the town from the amphitheatre

Many of the houses have the original medieval bottom walls with new levels built on top.  I was quite taken with this one.

House Plaques

The church, unfortunately not open when we were there

Eating in the gutter again, as Roger put it!

Small but fabulous archeological museum

fabulous sculptures

Golden door of the church (I don't think it was real gold!)

We found this lovely small museum, housed in an old manor house.  It had one rather strange exhibition of Greek Theatre.  But.... it was fascinating.

Medieval Door

Unfortunately I had woken up the previous day and my back was in spasm.  Didn't know whether to stand up, sit or lie down.  We weren't able to get all the way up to the castle as it is quite a hike, and there were other lots of other sites not seen.   Sooooo... we are going to come back in a week or so and finish it off properly, so look out for Sagunt II.