Monday and Tuesday 3-4 February - Simat de la Valldigna

Where's Bertie? He's still in the municipal Aire at Simat de la Valldigna.
Weather: Lightly overcast yesterday, wall-to-wall sunshine today.

Yesterday was a day of pottering close to the town, seeing a few of the Points of Interest marked on a map I'd found on an information board. The first was a chapel, just out of town. I'd noticed it when we'd been on the viewing platform at the monastery on Sunday then not thought any more of it until I ran past a signpost at a junction yesterday morning. After breakfast I suggested that we take a stroll out for a closer look.


The chapel was entirely underwhelming, but the circular walk into which we incorporated the visit was pleasant, even if I had already run most of it earlier in the day (although not the narrow path through the orange plantations with an unbridged stream crossing).

Lovely surroundings for both running and walking, through the orange plantations. We've done a lot of pondering about orange cultivation the last couple of days.

One of the other Points of Interest that had us both puzzled was the 'cavalry'. What could that be? Later in the day we took a walk through the town to find out.

We were most amused to arrive at the spot indicated on the map and read the sign there:

It wasn't just me. We'd both read the word as 'cavalry' several times and I'd still read it as such as I navigated us along 'Cavalry Road'. It was only when we saw this sign that we realised it actually said 'Calvary'. 

As we were out and about we thought we may as well go and have a look at the 'minor fountain', which turned out to be the source of a river - another underwhelming sight. Mick promised me something slightly more whelming, that he'd found when he'd popped out earlier, so rather than continuing along the street to the 'major fountain', we cut down to the river, where I impressed Mick by immediately recognising the feature for what it was:

The communal laundry facilities, which sit below street level.

The adjacent information sign told us that this laundry facility became an important meeting place for the local community after it was built in 1949. So, a couple of years before the UK started embracing the twintub, Simat was revelling in its own new, rather lower-tech, al-fresco laundry facilities.

This morning nearly started with an outrageous level of lounging around, but I managed to drag myself away from my book with just 10% to go (the second in the Oswald de Lacy series, set in the 1300s and very readable) to take us out for a walk.

Our destination was the ruins of a castle on a prominence about 700' above the valley floor:

As viewed from a distance away



On our way up.



Ruins. We had elevenses perched on the highest accessible bit.


Excellent views across the valley on our way back down

Having walked easily along the valley, through the orange plantations, we timed badly our arrival at the path that would lead us up to the ruins. I'm sure not many people walk that path each day, yet we found ourselves arriving at the junction at the same moment as another couple. We let them go ahead and took a gentle walk up rather than sitting on their heels, and I made clear to Mick that we were to turn around if it was too much for his poorly calf. His calf did start to protest, but by then we were so close to the top that he opted (wisely or not? He doesn't know yet) to continue.

Without knowing the history, it seems a curious place for a castle, but what a fine viewpoint - and a fine place for elevenses.

We returned via what looked, on the map, to be the least interesting route, because I wanted to do a recce of a particular road to see if it was suitable (i.e. not too busy) for use in a running route. It was fine, both for a walk and a run. Indeed, it even took us past another couple of (mildly interesting) water-based Points of Interest.

If it wasn't for my current focus on running and Mick's poorly leg, it would be nice to stay here for a week and to sample all of the local walking routes. However, given those limitations, together with the maximum stay at the Aire being 72 hours, we'll have to be on our way tomorrow.

^{(In case I don't write it up on t'other blog, and it's pretty likely I won't, it was 5.25 miles with just shy of 800' of ascent.)}