Logbook · 6 places

What to see and do in Carcaixent

What to see and do in Carcaixent (La Ribera Alta, Valencia): 6 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

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

How far each place is from the centre of Carcaixent

Hermitage of Sant Roc de Ternils 2.4 km

Towns near Carcaixent

What to see in Alzira 3.3 km · 6 places
What to see in Benimuslem 3.7 km · 2 places
What to see in Pobla Llarga (la) 4.7 km · 2 places
What to see in Alberic 6.1 km · 5 places
What to see in Massalavés 6.5 km · 2 places
What to see in Sant Joanet 6.5 km · 2 places
What to see in Guadassuar 7.1 km · 3 places
What to see in Castelló 7.1 km · 2 places

Spain › Valencian Community › Valencia › La Ribera Alta › Carcaixent

What to see and do in Carcaixent

Carcaixent
Village
Carcaixent is a municipality of the Ribera Alta, in the province of Valencia, considered the birthplace of Valencian orange growing. It extends between the right bank of the river Júcar, the Aguas Vivas valley and the Convento mountains, irrigated by the Júcar and its tributaries the Magro, Verde and Barcheta. Its origin goes back to a Muslim alqueria; the territory was organised into several scattered alquerias -Carcagente, Cogullada, Ternils, Benimaclí and Alborgí- which formed the Horta de Cent or Huerta de Carcagente. After the Christian conquest by James I in the 13th century, the population gradually concentrated in the settlement of Carcagente, which by 1266 already had 60 houses and about 250 residents; the parish was established in the alqueria of Ternils, where the original hermitage of San Roque is preserved.
Hermitage of Sant Roc de Ternils
Monument
The hermitage of Sant Roc de Ternils is the oldest surviving building in Carcaixent (La Ribera Alta, Valencia); it stands on the site of the former settlement of Ternils, depopulated in the 16th century by epidemics and floods, whose inhabitants moved to Cogullada and Carcaixent. It was the first Christian church in the Carcaixent huerta, built in the 13th century in transitional Gothic style, with a single rectangular nave measuring 20.5 by 9.20 metres and five pointed arches. The façade was remodelled in the 17th century with an undulating Baroque crest and a small bell-gable. Inside it preserves the original wooden ceiling with geometric decoration and a Gothic mural painting restored in 2023. Rehabilitated in the 1980s, it today functions as an auditorium.
Orange trees of Carcaixent
Curiosity
Carcaixent is considered the birthplace of Valencian orange growing: in 1781, Father Monzó and his friends Maseres and Bodí planted the municipality's first orange grove at the Bassa Reial. From 1848 it was exported to France, and from 1863 to Great Britain, which established citrus monoculture in the 19th century. From that period dates the Magatzem de Ribera, opened in 1903 for handling citrus fruit, one of the old warehouses still preserved in the municipality.
Festivities of Carcaixent
Activity
Carcaixent celebrates its patroness, the Virgin of Aguas Vivas, on 16 October, and its patron, Saint Boniface the Martyr, on 14 October, within a wider festive period running from 7 to 16 October. A few days earlier, on the first weekend of October, the town also holds the humorous Rally, in which different groups of residents, called “cotxes”, parade with a vehicle decorated according to a chosen theme and compete in video, parade and final performance events; the festival has been recognised as of local tourist interest since 2012 and provincial since 2017.
War of the Union and the fire of Carcaixent
Historical milestone
The confrontation between Pedro the Ceremonious and the Valencian Unionists reached the hamlets of the Ribera. In 1348 fire destroyed a good part of the settlement of Carcaixent and of neighbouring Cogullada, which took decades to recover their population.
Arrope and candied pieces
Food and drink
Grape-harvest sweet that consists in reducing grape must until a dark syrup is obtained in which pieces of pumpkin, melon or fig are candied. It was sold in the streets from carts and is still prepared in workshops of the Ribera.