Village
Venta del Moro is a municipality in the comarca of La Plana de Utiel-Requena, in the interior of the province of Valencia, with a Castilian-Manchegan cuisine, which did not manage to become independent from Requena until 1836. Its territory, divided between the vineyard lands of the east and the sierra del Rubial and the ribera del Cabriel to the more rugged west, includes part of the Hoces del Cabriel Natural Park and the puente de Vadocañas, a 16th-century bridge on a Roman base. Its sediments have yielded one of the most cited fossil fauna assemblages of the Upper Miocene in Europe, at the Puente de la Vía site, with the oldest known giant camels on the continent. In the rock shelter of the Hoz de Vicente, more than a hundred Neolithic cave paintings were discovered in 1987. It has 1,143 inhabitants.
Activity
Venta del Moro holds its main festival from 5 to 10 December in honour of its patroness, the Virgen de Loreto, and the feast of San Isidro Labrador on 15 May. During Holy Week the rite of Judas and the Procession of Silence on Good Friday stand out, and on the night of 30 April Los Mayos is celebrated, with popular songs dedicated to the Virgin and the village's young women; in the first half of August the Semana Cultural y de la Juventud also takes place. The cuisine accompanying these festivities, clearly Castilian rather than Levantine in origin, includes dishes such as morteruelo and potaje de vigilia.
Nature
Traditional underground wine cellars in Venta del Moro, dug beside the houses for making and keeping wine.
Nature
The Los Cuchillos site, in Venta del Moro (La Plana de Utiel-Requena, Valencia), forms part of the Hoces del Cabriel natural park, covering 31,446 hectares spread across Requena, Venta del Moro and Villargordo del Cabriel. Its name corresponds to a formation created by the erosion of the soft part of the Upper Cretaceous limestone and dolomite rock, which has left an impressive vertical ridge. The area is covered with pine woods of Mediterranean species and is home to birds of prey such as the golden eagle, for which it has been declared a Special Protection Area for Birds.
Activity
Wine quality competition held in Venta del Moro, one of the wine events of the comarca of La Plana de Utiel-Requena.
Curiosity
Jaraguas is the most populated of the six hamlets of Venta del Moro, located about 5.5 kilometres from the main settlement, in the Albosa valley, on a rise at 797 metres above sea level, with steep, winding streets. It preserves old schools — today a rural school grouped together with Fuenterrobles and Villargordo del Cabriel —, a wine cooperative and the Fuente del Amparo with its washhouse, as well as other springs beside three ravines, the Albosa, the Encaños and the Salada, and salt pans traditionally used communally. It is credited with notable antiquity: near the village, ceramic remains of a possible Iberian necropolis have been found, along with a Roman stone slab now in the Museum of Requena, although in the Middle Ages and the early modern period it never amounted to more than a hamlet, like much of the region.
Monument
Parish church of the hamlet of Jaraguas, in the municipal district of Venta del Moro, the centre of religious life in this settlement alongside the local devotion to the Virgen de los Desamparados.
Curiosity
Hamlet of Venta del Moro with some 116 inhabitants, whose church was paid for by the benefactress Lucía Garrido Pardo, a native of the place and wife of the pharmacist Ramón Sáiz de Carlos.
Monument
Church blessed in 1928 by the bishop of Cuenca, dedicated to the Virgen del Carmen, patron saint of the hamlet of Las Monjas, whose feast day is celebrated on 16 July.
Curiosity
Los Marcos, a hamlet of Venta del Moro, already had a chapel dedicated to Saint Isidore the Labourer, documented in the 1752 Ensenada Cadastre, when the settlement numbered barely two houses. Today it has around 40 inhabitants, and its church is listed as a building of architectural interest in the locality.
Monument
Church blessed on 15 May 1961 replacing the old hermitage plundered in 1936, dedicated to San Isidro Labrador in the hamlet of Los Marcos.
Curiosity
Casas de Moya is a hamlet of Venta del Moro (Valencia), on a rise from which the Requena-Utiel region can be seen — Requena is visible from more than 40 kilometres away —, laid out around a large square dominated by the church of Saint Anthony Abbot, dating from the 1920s. Documented since the 18th century as a hamlet of barely four families, it grew to 146 dwellings by 1975, before the rural exodus of the sixties and seventies reduced its population and services. Its traditional economy is based on the vine, the almond and the olive, within the Utiel-Requena designation of origin. The patronal festivities, on 17 January in honour of Saint Anthony Abbot, are celebrated with a large bonfire, and in summer the August festivities are added, which bring together the casamoyeros who no longer live in the hamlet.
Monument
Church inaugurated on 10 March 1924 and refurbished in 2001, dedicated to San Antonio Abad, which also serves the religious needs of the neighbouring hamlet of Casas del Rey.
Curiosity
One of the six hamlets of Venta del Moro, linked to Casas de Moya by a waymarked hiking route and with its own church built during the missionary campaign of the 1920s.
Curiosity
A hamlet of Venta del Moro, one of the six pedanías of the municipality, in the region of La Plana de Utiel-Requena. Like the rest of the hamlets of the municipality, it has suffered a sharp demographic decline since 1950, over 80% in its case, leaving it with just 116 inhabitants today. It preserves the church of San Gregorio, listed as a building of architectural interest.
Monument
Parish church of the hamlet of Casas de Pradas, in the municipal district of Venta del Moro, dedicated to San Antonio Abad.
Historical milestone
The villages of the western end of the alfoz of Requena asked to separate from 1798 and did not achieve it until 1836. The resulting municipality, with Casas de Moya and Jaraguas among its centres, is the third largest in extent in the province of Valencia.
Nature
The sediments of the district have yielded one of the most cited assemblages of fossil fauna of the upper Miocene in Europe, with remains of the oldest giant camels known on the continent. The excavation campaigns have followed one another since the middle of the last century.
Food and drink
The cooking of the western end of the comarca is Castilian and Manchegan at root, not Valencian. Morteruelo, a hot pâté of pork liver and game crushed with spices, and the fast-day stew of chickpeas and salt cod are its most repeated dishes.