Village
Riba-roja de Túria is a municipality of El Camp de Túria, in the province of Valencia, with 21,992 inhabitants, in the second ring of the capital's metropolitan area, built on a hill on the right bank of the Turia river. Its name probably comes from the Latin Ripa Rubea (red riverbank), though a pre-Roman origin in 'roya', gully, has also been proposed, after the ravines surrounding the town. Its castle, from the 11th century and remodelled up to the 20th, today houses the Visigothic Museum of Pla de Nadal and the Museum of Ceramics; within its municipal territory, in the Turia Natural Park, lies the Hispano-Visigothic settlement of Valencia la Vella, with walled enclosures, a church and civil buildings. After the expulsion of the Moriscos, the Marquis of Guadalest resettled it with forty-one colonists.
Activity
Riba-roja de Túria celebrates its main festival on 15 August in honour of the Assumption of Our Lady, and on 14 September the festival of the Santísimo Cristo de los Afligidos, with a procession of clavarios and clavariesas.
Nature
The Pla de Nadal site, discovered in 1970 during farm work, preserves part of a Visigothic building from the second half of the 7th century that formed part of a palace complex erected in the territory of ancient Valentia. It reproduces the classic villa model with a gallery and corner towers, opening onto a central courtyard, with an austere-looking ground floor and an upper floor, reserved for the lord, paved with opus signinum and decorated with sculptures and stuccoes partly preserved. Its closest parallels are found in Byzantine palaces of the Justinianic era, such as Qasr ibn Wardan in Syria, and in similar buildings in the Visigothic capital, Toledo. It is listed as a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection).
Nature
Stretch of the River Turia within its natural park, as it passes through Riba-roja de Túria, 18 kilometres from the city of Valencia. The natural park follows the riverbed from Cuart de Poblet, crossing the municipalities of Manises, Paterna and Riba-roja de Túria, among others, as far as Pedralba, and is home to more than 400 animal species amid Mediterranean pine forests and riverbank vegetation. In the municipality of Riba-roja, on the right bank of the river, an old Roman system of water-supply aqueducts adapted to the terrain's topography is preserved. Every five years, the riverside municipalities hold the Offering to the River Turia, in thanks for its waters; on 29 October 2024 the river burst its banks due to torrential rain.
Monument
The castle and walled enclosure of Riba-roja de Túria, a Bien de Interés Cultural since 2005 (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) and also known as La Torre, stands beside the river Turia, between the barrancos of the Moros and the Monjas, in a strategic location between the ancient Valentia and Edeta already in Roman times. Archaeological remains, such as fragments of aqueducts and villas reused as farmhouses, point to settlements devoted to growing wine, oil and grain shipped out from Valencia. The enclosure, today merged into the urban fabric, preserves stretches near the calle del Mercado and the plaza de la Torre, with the ruined Torre Musulmana at their meeting point. An 11th-century fortification reworked up to the 20th, it now houses the Visigothic Museum of Pla de Nadal (MUPLA) and the Castle Ceramics Museum (MUCA).
Nature
An extensive Hispano-Visigothic hilltop settlement, with walled enclosures, a church and civic buildings, in the Turia Nature Park within the municipal district of Riba-roja de Túria; it is one of the most important Visigothic sites in the Peninsula.
Monument
A former convent with a Neo-Gothic chapel, part of Riba-roja's urban water route along with the cistern, the washing place and the Old Bridge over the Túria.
Activity
An urban route taking in the historic features linked to the town's use of water: the cistern, the washing place, the Old Bridge, the Miller's House and the Town Hall Square.
Historical milestone
The Unionists took control of the place in 1348 and executed the lord's officers during the rising against Peter IV; the king's subsequent repression was especially harsh in the Kingdom of Valencia.
Historical milestone
With the place emptied by the expulsion of the Moriscos, the marquis of Guadalest offered land and houses to forty-one colonists in exchange for rents and shares of the crop; in 1646 only forty-five inhabited houses remained.
Food and drink
A stew of pulses, vegetables and cured sausage cooked slowly, a dish prepared alongside the paellas and the meats at the popular meals of the August festivities on the banks of the Turia.