Peñíscola

After a night in La Ràpita, we lifted the anchor as the sun was rising to continue our journey southwest along the Spanish coast. There was not a breath of wind as we set off, so the engine was running for an hour, until a very light westerly wind started blowing. The journey was only 17 nm to the next planned anchorage so with plenty of time to get there, we lifted the sails and sailed slowly in a calm flat sea.

Our next port of call was the small town of Peñíscola and we could see the castle on top of the rock as we approached. We continued around the peninsula and dropped our anchor in the bay with impressive views of the castle on the hill overlooking the old town.

The following day, we headed ashore, after a bit of hunting we found that the only safe place to leave Ed and Fred was tied to a floating platform owned by the local jet ski hire company. Although you can’t see in the picture, small waves were rolling in and the platform was very bouncy and unstable, I ended up crawling over it on my hands and knees to get to shore, it was like a scene from the old TV show ‘It’s A Knockout’.

Peñíscola is known for its beaches and fortified ancient city with an imposing medieval Castle on the highest point, rising 64 metres above the sea. We walked around the port, through the very substantial defence walls and up the hill towards the castle.

Castillo de Peñíscola was constructed between 1294 and 1307 on the remains of an old Moorish citadel, built with walls of carved stone, by the Knights Templar to guard the coastline and trade routes. Later it was the residence of Antipope Benedict XIII (Papa Luna), who turned the fortress into a palace and papal library when he was exiled and moved to Peñíscola in 1411. It was further modified in the 16th century by king Philip II of Spain, to strengthen the castle with artillery for defense. 

The Portal Fosc or ‘Dark Entrance Gate’ was the only access by land until the 18th century. The monumental portico has been preserved with its coat of arms of Philip II above.

Inside, the rooms were all vaulted, and of course there were dungeons for holding prisoners and for torture.

In the 18th century the church of The Virgin of Ermitana was added on the previous site of a small chapel.

From the top of the tower, there were great panoramic views of the town, sea, beaches, and the castles artillery gardens, also we could see Ziggy anchored alone in the bay.

Much of the medieval castle, gardens and walled town have been used as settings in several films including recently Game of Thrones but probably most famously El Cid.

After exploring the castle, we wandered through the old town with narrow alleyways and white painted buildings. It had more of a Greek look than the usual coloured houses that we’ve seen this year in the Italian, French and Spanish coastal towns.

In the town is a ‘House of Shells’ (La Casa de las Conchas), with its façade completely covered in shells. The story behind the house started with a family in the 1950’s, who needed more money to support their three children. Tourists were just beginning to discover Peñíscola so they learnt all about every corner of the town and its history and began offering tours, becoming the towns first tour guides.

Slowly but surely, they earned a steady income and bought a plot of land to build a three storey house to live in. Due to their love of Peñíscola, they decided to decorate the entire façade of the house with shells native to Peñíscola, acquiring the shells by giving the local sailors tobacco in exchange for the best shells that they could find. By 1961, La Casa de las Conchas was completed.

The house also features a coat of arms in honour of Papa Luna or Pope Benedict XIII, as well as blue arabesque windows. Over 60 years later, La Casa de las Conchas still remains as a popular attraction in Peñíscola.

After exploring we made the most of the clear water while here and gave the hull a clean, this job has not been required very often this season, thankfully there has been a lot less growth than last year. All our hard work back in Malta sanding and reactivating the copper coat has definitely paid off.

After a couple of days in the nice calm anchorage there was a good weather forecast to continue on our journey. We set off on a 37 nm passage with a good force 3 southerly wind, there was still a bit of swell that interfered with the sails making them flap as we rode over the waves. But this time we managed to maintain a resonable speed all the way and dropped anchor outside Puerto de Burriana under black clouds and sheltered a little behind the long harbour wall.

The swell built up and we had a bumpy night, but the black clouds disappeared, the sun came out and it was all calm in the morning as we left the bay.

We had booked a couple of nights in the marina at València so out came the sails to continue another 27 nm down the coast. We only had light winds which constantly changed direction throughout the day keeping us busy trimming the sails.

Eventually we arrived at València, the large marina was developed for the 32nd and 33rd Americas cup. It was probably quite smart in 2007, even the drain covers all marked the event, but now the facilities are starting to show their age and it all looked rather scruffy. However, it was very conveniently situated to explore the city which we looked forward to doing over the next few days.