This town, a 25 minute train ride north of Valencia, was known as Sagunto by the Romans and then as Murviejo (“Old walls”) for about a thousand subsequent years of its impossibly complex history – before reacquiring the old name 100 years or so ago.

Today one visits for the chance to explore the remains of the castle/fortress/stronghold which stands above the city.

Mentioned in Greek texts from 600 BCE. Built up by the Romans. Besieged for 9 months and then taken by Hannibal. Taken back from the Carthaginians by the Romans > Visigoths > Muslims > Spanish Christians > French > Valencian Spanish (hence Sagunt > Republican anti-fascist Partisans > Franco’s Falange > tourists.

The castle complex is over 1km long. This is one end of it, viewed from the middle:

Below is the ruin of a Roman theatre (built in the first century CE) with (very controversially) a huge new brick theatre built directly on top of the ruin in the 1990s:

Great acoustics, I have to give them that.

A chilly, cloudy day and alas the once-magnificent views out to the coast are an industrial wasteland:

Carved into the hills below the castle are the remains of old Jewish graves. Their history is not known, other than the relative certainty that they were abandoned by the late 1400s due to the Spanish Inquisition.

We had the chance for a bit of a wander through the old part of town before the chilly air chased the group back into the relative warmth of the train.

Now back in Valencia and, having moved out of the student residence, we are at the clean and modern if slightly utilitarian Hotel Kramer, just outside the old city.