Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Benicarló

What to see and do in Benicarló (El Baix Maestrat, Castellón): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Activities · 1 Historical milestones · 1 Food and drink

When to go to Benicarló: festival calendar

March: Fallas of Benicarló (March 15-19)

How far each place is from the centre of Benicarló

Fallas of Benicarló 50 m

Towns near Benicarló

What to see in Peníscola 6.8 km · 9 places
What to see in Vinaròs 7.3 km · 12 places
What to see in Càlig 7.5 km · 6 places
What to see in Santa Magdalena de Pulpis 12 km · 2 places
What to see in Sant Jordi 13 km · 2 places
What to see in Cervera del Maestre 13 km · 6 places
What to see in Alcanar 15 km · 14 places
What to see in Traiguera 16 km · 5 places

Spain › Valencian Community › Castellón › El Baix Maestrat › Benicarló

What to see and do in Benicarló

Benicarló
Village
Benicarló is a coastal municipality of El Baix Maestrat, in the province of Castellón, famous for its artichokes, with 30,296 inhabitants. The oldest remains of occupation are found in the Iberian settlements of the Tossa and the Puig de la Nau, with walls still visible on the outskirts. The town began as Beni-Gazlum, a Muslim farmstead of Peñíscola, and after the Reconquest received a charter of settlement from Jaime I in 1236; it belonged to the Order of the Temple and later to that of Montesa, which drove a period of growth, and in 1370 Pedro the Ceremonious granted it the right to ship goods without paying tribute. It remained loyal to the king during the Germanías revolt, which earned it the title of town in 1523, and it suffered attacks by Turkish pirates and an epidemic of plague.
Fallas of Benicarló
Activity
The Fallas of Benicarló, declared Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO, are celebrated between the last week of February or the first of March and the day of San José, 19 March, with the Ninot cavalcade, the plantà, street parades, mascletàs, fireworks, the flower offering and the final cremà. It is the only village in the Bajo Maestrazgo and in the whole of northern Castellón where this festival is held, making the fallas set up in Benicarló the northernmost in the world. They have been held without interruption since 1973, when a group of residents, invited the previous year by the Valencian falla Poeta Altet Benicarló to experience the festival first-hand, founded the first local falla committee. In 2014 the festival was declared of Interés Turístico Autonómico (a regional Festival of Tourist Interest designation).
Convent of San Francisco (MUCBE) de Benicarló
Monument
Baroque convent of Discalced Franciscans founded in 1578 by Fray Cristóbal de la Plaza, declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection), which, after serving as a school, a charity hospital and a Guardia Civil barracks, today houses the Museum of the City of Benicarló. Little remains of the original 16th-century building, since successive interventions left the present fabric, dating from the 18th century. It is arranged around a small cloister with the church on one of its sides: a single nave of four bays with a barrel vault and a pentagonal chancel inside. The baroque façade ends in a mixtilinear shape, with oculi and a single-tier bell-gable. Its restoration began in 1995 with the Escola Taller Convent de Sant Francesc, and the museum was opened in the building in 2005.
The settlement charter of Benicarló
Historical milestone
James I granted in 1236 a settlement charter to the place, heir to the Andalusi farmstead of Beni-Gazlum; for centuries it depended on Peníscola and did not achieve full municipal autonomy until the Early Modern period.
Benicarló artichoke
Food and drink
The Benicarló artichoke is a protected designation of origin covering the cultivation of this vegetable in the Castellón district of Bajo Maestrazgo, in the towns of Benicarló, Cálig, Peñíscola and Vinaroz, among the sandy lands near the sea. It is an artichoke of the white Tudela variety, with a tender heart and no fuzz, grown from October to June and recognised by its flat, compact shape. Cultivation has been traditional in the area since at least the 18th century, when it was cited by the botanist Antonio José de Cavanilles, although large-scale production did not take off until the 1940s. The designation of origin was approved in 1998 and recognised as protected by the European Union in 2003, and the town devotes its winter food festival to it.