Logbook · 10 places

What to see and do in Fanzara

What to see and do in Fanzara (El Alto Mijares, Castellón): 10 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 4 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Activities · 1 Historical milestones · 2 Food and drink

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Spain › Valencian Community › Castellón › El Alto Mijares › Fanzara

What to see and do in Fanzara

Fanzara
Village
Fanzara is a municipality of the Alto Mijares comarca, in the province of Castellón, with 295 inhabitants (INE 2025), located in a valley at the foot of the río Mijares, at 239 metres above sea level and surrounded by large expanses of pine and holm-oak forest. The origin of the settlement goes back to Muslim rule, although there are earlier Iberian and Roman remains; in 1259 King James I gave it to his wife Teresa Gil de Vidaure and to their son Pedro. It is a Spanish-speaking municipality, although its proximity to Valencian-speaking towns such as Onda places it on a linguistic border. Dry farming has given way to irrigated citrus, while a good part of the population works in the ceramics industry of Onda. A municipality known today for its open-air urban art museum.
Museum of Arte Urbano de Fanzara (MIAU)
Monument
The Unfinished Museum of Urban Art of Fanzara, an open-air museum with murals painted on the village façades since 2013.
Festivities of Fanzara
Activity
Fanzara celebrates its patronal festival on the second Sunday of October, in honour of the Santo Sepulcro, the Virgen de Montserrat and San Roque, with bous al carrer, communal meals and a procession to the hermitage.
Arab castle of Fanzara
Monument
Castle of Arab origin from the 13th century in Fanzara, whose town center preserves a Muslim layout of narrow, concentric streets. With an irregular, elongated plan adapted to the hilltop, it belonged to the lordship of Abuceit; James I gave it to his son Pedro in 1259, it passed to Jaime de Jérica in 1272, and by 1417 it already belonged to the House of Segorbe. Today it lies in ruins: the upper enclosure has disappeared, and only fragments of the wall and the base of the main tower remain, around which remains from the Bronze Age, and Iberian and Islamic periods, have been found.
Pools of the Fanzara River
Nature
A bathing spot with crystal-clear water beneath the bridge at Fanzara, one of the natural beauty spots of the comarca of El Alto Mijares.
Hermitage of el Santo Sepulcro de Fanzara
Monument
Hermitage situated on a pine-covered hill that has dominated the landscape of Fanzara since the 18th century. It is the centre of the town's patronal festival, held on the second Sunday of October in honour of the Santo Sepulcro, the Virgen de Montserrat and San Roque, which culminates in a solemn procession to the hermitage in which the image is carried by costaleros through the streets of the town.
Church of la Asunción de Fanzara
Monument
The Church of the Asunción in Fanzara, in the Baroque style, was built in the centre of the town's historic quarter, completed in 1682 on the site of a more modest earlier church; the Chapel of the Communion was added in 1742 and the sacristy in 1753. It has a single nave with six bays, side chapels between the buttresses and a polygonal chancel, covered by a barrel vault with lunettes that becomes star-ribbed over the chancel, decorated with floral sgraffito. The façade, on one side, is bare except for the doorway, flanked by superimposed Doric and Ionic pilasters, and by the square-plan, two-tier bell tower. The Chapel of the Communion has a Greek-cross plan with a dome on a drum. It belonged to the diocese of Tortosa until 1960, being its only Spanish-speaking parish.
The grant of Fanzara to Teresa Gil de Vidaure
Historical milestone
James I handed over in 1259 the castle and the place, previously of Abu Zayd's lordship, to Teresa Gil de Vidaure and to the son she had with him; the donation tied the village to a lineage that marked the history of the Valencian interior.
The pastizos of Fanzara
Food and drink
Little pastries filled with sweet potato or angel-hair squash jam that are baked for Christmas; together with rosegons, madeleines and almond cake they make up the homemade baking of this village of the Mijares.
Thistle stew
Food and drink
A stew of wild cardoon, cabbage and other vegetables from the terraces with pork products, a winter dish of the valley; for the festivities, by contrast, rabbit and chicken paella and oven-baked rice are cooked.