Logbook · 6 places

What to see and do in Almenara

What to see and do in Almenara (La Plana Baixa, Castellón): 6 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

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

How far each place is from the centre of Almenara

Castle of Almenara 600 m
Almenara wetland 3 km

Towns near Almenara

What to see in La Llosa 2.4 km · 1 place
What to see in Benavites 3.1 km · 3 places
What to see in Quartell 3.7 km · 8 places
What to see in Quart de les Valls 4.3 km · 3 places
What to see in Faura 4.5 km · 7 places
What to see in Chilches/Xilxes 4.6 km · 1 place
What to see in Benifairó de les Valls 4.6 km · 5 places
What to see in La Vall d'Uixó 7.8 km · 8 places

Spain › Valencian Community › Castellón › La Plana Baixa › Almenara

What to see and do in Almenara

Almenara
Village
Almenara is a municipality in La Plana Baixa, in the province of Castellón, dominated by its 10th-century Muslim castle, with 6,813 inhabitants. The name comes from the Arabic al-manara, the lighthouse or watchtower, referring to the Arab towers on the Castillo hill from which fires were lit as a warning. The municipal area, flat to the south and east and more rugged to the north and west, where the Montaña de la Frontera rises, extends between La Plana and the Segó valley, with a sandy coastline of more than three kilometres behind which lies the marjal, or marsh, devoted to rice growing since the mid-19th century. On the castle hill an Iberian settlement and necropolis have been found, and other sites bear witness to intense Romanisation of the area, linked to neighbouring Sagunto.
Castle of Almenara
Monument
A 10th-century Muslim fortress built on Roman remains on a hill 175 metres high, with two towers known as L'Agüelet and L'Agüeleta. Its name, Al-manara, means lighthouse or watchtower, for its role on the border between the taifas of Valencia and Tortosa; the earliest written references date from the 11th century, and in 1238 it was conquered by James I and incorporated into the Kingdom of Aragón, an episode recorded in the Llibre dels feits. Of irregular layout with three enclosures, the upper castle occupies a platform of 4,000 square metres and preserves a cistern and the remains of a mosque. The Bergamuza tower was rebuilt between 1862 and 1865 using stones from the demolished Dominican convent, as a communications tower. Declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 1985, it is mentioned in the Cantar de Mío Cid.
Almenara wetland
Nature
The Almenara marjal is a protected wetland included in the Natura 2000 Network and in the Valencian Regional Government's Catalogue of Wetlands, within the group of coastal lagoons and marshes. It covers 1550 hectares and, in 2017, an area of 1473.9 hectares was declared a Ramsar site. It extends between the south of the province of Castellón and the north of that of Valencia, in the comarcas of La Plana Baixa and El Camp de Morvedre, and covers part of the municipal areas of Chilches, La Llosa, Almenara, Sagunto, Benavites and Cuartell. Its coastal landscape brings together highly varied habitats, including ponds with hydrophytic vegetation, calcareous peat bogs, and Mediterranean saline grasslands and steppes.
Festivities of Almenara
Activity
Almenara celebrates its patronal festival on the last Saturday of September in honour of Nuestra Señora del Buen Suceso and San Roque, as well as festivals for San Roque in August at the beach and for San Antonio in January with a communal bonfire and the blessing of animals.
The battle of Almenara
Historical milestone
The viceroy's army, led by the Duke of Segorbe, defeated some six thousand agermanats from Valencia and Morvedre in 1521; with more than two thousand casualties, the revolt definitively lost the north of the kingdom. The battle, also called the Battle of Morvedre, was fought on 18 July in the partida of Montíber, near the present-day national road 340: the royalist camp was at Almenara and that of the agermanats at Sagunto. The Revolt of the Germanies had begun years earlier out of guild tensions against the Valencian urban oligarchy, and had in Joan Llorenç its ideologue and founder, under whose impetus the guilds went so far as to form a council of thirteen syndics to govern the city of Valencia.
Eel all i pebre
Food and drink
The eels caught in the channels of the marjal are stewed with potato, paprika, ñora and plenty of garlic in an earthenware casserole; it is the classic dish of the wetland villages of this coastal strip.