Sagunto

Adventure time.

I like to escape my city bubble as often as possible.

It drives me slowly insane living in a tower block in a city, with no garden or green space nearby, always surrounded by so many busy people bustling about their daily lives. 

So this weekend I hopped on the train and headed north for my refill of culture and nature!

First stop, Sagunto. My bestie Shona and her lovely flatmate C and I decided to go explore this Roman town sprawled on the side of a huge hill, with its main attractions being the ancient castle/ruins and the amphitheatre. 

Being English and being students, we had no map, and being Spanish, the hill had no signs....so we 'cut our own detail' and headed straight on up the hill (a recurrent feature of the weekend...) Somehow we found a viewpoint.... but it was on the wrong side of the hill...

Meandering our way back down the side of the hill, we came across the amphitheatre itself....purely by chance! It was constructed in the 1st Century and was declared a National Monument in 1896. You can see that is has been skilful built into the mountainside and we learnt it has excellent acoustics (Yes, we were rather loud and giggly). It was partly restored in the late 20th Century and I enjoyed how the old stone nicely complemented the ancient brickwork.

 

The Castle offers excellent views of the surrounding plains and is clear how the city was such a strategic defensive location back in the day. Iberians, Romans and Moors have all occupied the castle at some point during its history, each influencing it somehow. The ruins extend for a kilometre along the top of the hill and were great fun to go stomping up and down playing 'King of the Castle'. 

 It reminded me of a hungry mouth, early Cookie Monster maybe?!

This is testament to how windy it was! Full on gale force gusts, in every direction!! There was no hiding from nature in sunny Sagunto.

The rest of the dat was spent snuggled up on the sofa indulging in a movie marathon, munching on popcorn. 

A perfect day with my ginge.

Stay tuned for part 2 of the weekend....