Saturday 30th December 2023
Exploring high places seems to be a developing theme of this trip (and blog). El Castell de Guadalest is a small village of around 200 residents, high in the mountains above Benidorm.
On our way, we passed a road vehicle museum and local retail shop which sold a wide range of products, many of them local and quite cheap. We invested in a bottle of the local “port” and a couple of mats for the motorhome floor.
I think that the main exhibits were motorcycles like the one on the wall (below left). I could not resist taking a photo of the plough (below right), which is almost identical to the one we had as a garden ornament at our house in France.
Further up the hill are the remains of a business venture, the building of which are seemingly about to fall down the hill. Looking through the windows, there are huge cracks in the walls.
When you first see it, El Castell de Guadalest looks impossibility high to reach…
…but via a very steep and wiggly road, climbing bend after hairpin bend, you arrive to find a busy village, with lots of visitors. There are two car parks, the lower of which allows motorhomes to stay for 6€.
They even provide a zebra crossing to safely get you across the road to the cafe.
The village is in two halves and to get from one to the other and the main village square, you take a path around the rock and up the steps to a gap:
Walking on, you come to the main square, which is a high terrace:
In its elevated position, the village has amazing views in every direction:
We chose to go up to the castle. The admission price (4€ each), includes the entrance to the Museo Casa Orduña, a house built in the 1600s following a great devastating earthquake in the area. It is immediately alongside the Church of the Assumption.
In one room of the house, called “The Room of the Virgin”, there are some religious items, including what looks like an almost life-sized doll in a glass case and some silverware:
Access to the castle is from the rear of the museum, up a metal staircase:
From the top, the views are even more impressive:
As the sun dropped lower, the tops of the mountains opposite were reflected in the water of the reservoir:
…and we looked down from the very top of the castle:
"See-u-Later" 