Village
Sax is a municipality in the comarca of Alto Vinalopó, in the province of Alicante, with about 10,300 inhabitants and a Spanish-speaking majority. Its name comes from the Latin saxum, 'rock', after the rocky mass on which stands the castle that gives its name to the town that grew up around it. The village sits at 473 metres above sea level, on the south face of the Cruz de Sax (528 m), crowned by the castle that defines the municipality's skyline. It lies in the valley of the Vinalopó river, a trough running from southwest to northeast across the Prebetic mountain ranges, between the Sierra de Cabreras to the west and the Sierra de la Peña Rubia and Sierra de la Argueña to the east. The river, with a modest flow, receives several ramblas and ravines coming down from these mountains.
Monument
Castle of Sax, a fortress on a steep rock 524 metres above sea level overlooking the town, its narrow-streeted old quarter and the Vinalopó valley between Elda and Villena. The oldest remains on the hill are Iberian and Roman, but the present fortress is of Andalusi origin, probably Almohad, from the 12th century, rebuilt in the 14th century under Don Juan Manuel. The Order of Calatrava conquered it in 1239 and it later passed to the lordship of Villena until the Catholic Monarchs incorporated it into the Crown in 1480. It preserves two walled enclosures, a rectangular tower with two-metre-thick walls, and a cistern. A Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), it has been municipal property since 1980 and is now restored and open to visitors.
Activity
Sax's Moors and Christians festival, from 1 to 5 February in honour of San Blas, arose in 1627 from a communal vow and commemorates the reconquest of the castle by the troops of Jaime I in 1239; eight festival comparsas take part.
Monument
Parish church of Sax, one of the municipality's main heritage buildings alongside the castle. It is a single-nave temple in the shape of a Latin cross, built in the 16th century, of which the late-Gothic ribbed vault covering the nave survives. In the 18th century it received a Classicist refacing, with an upper gallery and the chapels of the Communion and of the Pilar. Its Renaissance north doorway stands out, recalling the church of Saint James in Villena.
Monument
The Ermita de San Blas de Sax, probably from the 13th century, served as the town's parish church during the Middle Ages, built on the site of the former mosque; its Baroque bell gable was added in the 17th and 18th centuries, and it now houses the image of the patron saint.
Nature
The pine forest of El Plano is an extensive stand of pine trees that stretches to the northwest of the town centre of Sax, in the L'Alt Vinalopó region, crossed by paths and livestock droving routes that today serve as trails for hiking and cycle touring.
Activity
The Moors and Christians festival of Sax is held from 1 to 5 February in honour of Saint Blaise, patron of the town since 1627, the year in which the people of Sax promised to celebrate his feast forever in gratitude for having freed them from an epidemic of garrotillo (diphtheria). The celebration, which commemorates the reconquest of Sax by the troops of James I in 1239, was originally a simple religious act with arquebus salvoes and dances, and took on its current structure in the late 18th and early 19th centuries; its duration was extended from the initial three days to the current five in 1889. Declared a Fiesta de Interés Turístico Provincial de la Comunidad Valenciana (a provincial tourist-interest festival designation of the Valencian Community) in 2013, it brings together thousands of participants each year in parades of comparsas (costumed brigades) and festive music.
Monument
19th-century agricultural colony in Sax that preserves warehouses, factories, a palace, a theatre and the hermitage of Santa Eulalia, functioning as a small hamlet within the municipality. Located at 480 metres above sea level between the municipalities of Sax and Villena, with Salinas street as the boundary between the two, its construction began in the late 19th century under the protection of the 1868 colonies law and within the framework of utopian socialism. It is now semi-abandoned, with many of its main buildings in an advanced state of decay. On 19 February 2016 the Generalitat Valenciana declared it a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), after proceedings begun in February 2015.
Monument
The Sax snow well is an 18th-century structure situated on the north face of the Peña del Castillo, next to the Vinalopó river. It was used to store snow with which the village was supplied with ice during the summer.
Monument
La Torre is a natural site in the municipality of Sax that preserves remains from Roman times -among them a Roman villa- and from the Arab period, when the town fell under Muslim rule in the 8th century. Beside these ruins stand a country house and the hermitage of San Pancracio.
Curiosity
Josef Torreblanca, born in Sax in 1616, was parish priest of the church of Santa Catalina in Murcia and commissioner of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. In 1674 he founded, in his family home -where the family coat of arms is still preserved on Mayor street in Sax- the Obra Pía of the Torreblanca family, intended to provide a dowry for the maidens of his lineage so that they could marry.
Activity
The Cabildo de Sax, in the comarca of Alt Vinalopó (Alicante), is a communal assembly of medieval tradition that meets on 26 December, open to all residents who wish to take part in preparing the Moors and Christians festivities in honour of San Blas, held in February.
Activity
The festivity of Santa Eulalia de Sax, the municipality's former patron saint, is held the weekend following the 12th of February in the Colonia de Santa Eulalia, where her image is kept; the village's main festivity is the Moors and Christians from the 1st to the 5th of February in honor of San Blas, patron saint since 1627.
Historical milestone
Sax, Villena and Salinas belonged for centuries to the kingdom of Murcia and to the crown of Castile. The liberal territorial reorganisation assigned them in 1836 to the province of Alicante, which explains why they are Spanish-speaking municipalities within the País Valenciano.
Historical milestone
The Madrid-Alicante line, completed in 1858, crossed the Vinalopó corridor and opened a station in the town. The train took wine, esparto and salt out towards the port, and brought the coal that set the first mechanised workshops going.
Food and drink
The oven baking marks the calendar of the year: the fluffy Easter toña, the rolls of anise and spirits and the Christmas macaroons. They were kneaded at home and taken to be baked at the town oven, which returned them in the afternoon.