Find the portrait of Philip V in the Museu de l'Almodí and check which way up it is hanging

Work out why: the town was burned in 1707 and renamed after the man in the picture

Walk the length of the castle along the ridge — it is two castles, the Castell Menor and the Castell Major

Find out which popes came from here, and what the Borja family did next

Find the Gothic Sant Feliu church below the castle, one of the oldest buildings left after the fire

Xàtiva backed the Austrian side in the War of the Spanish Succession, and in 1707 Bourbon troops burned the town in reprisal. Philip V then renamed it San Felipe, after himself; the Cortes of Cádiz gave the old name back in 1811. The town has not forgotten. In its museum hangs a portrait of Philip V, and it hangs upside down. Xàtiva was also the cradle of the Borja popes — Calixtus III and Alexander VI — and the twin castle on the ridge above, praised by al-Idrisi in the 12th century for its beauty and strength, runs along the whole crest.

Xàtiva: The Town Hung Upside Down

Climb into the Covetes dels Moros and work out that there is no original way up to them

Work through the theories — granary, refuge, burial — and decide which one the shape supports

Find the bullring cut directly out of the rock rather than built

Walk the medieval quarter on the cliff edge above the Clariano

Go into the old ice wells on the sierra above, where snow was stored for the summer

In a cliff face above Bocairent there are dozens of small rectangular chambers cut into the rock in rows, opening onto nothing — no path, no stair, no floor below them. They are called the Covetes dels Moros, and nobody is certain what they were: granaries, refuges and burial chambers have all been argued. They are generally dated to the Islamic period. The town below is built into the rock itself, with a bullring cut out of the hillside and a network of medieval streets on the cliff edge above the Clariano.

Bocairent: A Cliff Full of Cut Chambers

Take a traditional boat trip on the Albufera lagoon, the freshwater lake 11km south of Valencia in a 21,120-hectare natural park

Look for waterbirds — more than 250 species have been recorded at the Albufera

Walk the dunes and pinewoods of the Devesa del Saler, the coastal strip separating the lagoon from the sea

Visit a barraca, the traditional thatched house of the Albufera

The Albufera is a freshwater lagoon eleven kilometres south of Valencia, separated from the sea by a wooded dune bar and surrounded by rice fields — 21,120 hectares of natural park, with over 250 bird species recorded. It was a royal hunting preserve for centuries, which is why it survived. Flat-bottomed boats still work it, the barracas with their steep thatched roofs are the traditional houses of the people who fished and farmed it, and the sunset over the lagoon from El Palmar is genuinely worth arranging a day around.

The Albufera: Boats on the Lagoon and the Barracas

Go in through the tunnel cut in the rock, which is the only entrance to the upper village

Climb to the bell tower on its own spur and look down at the reservoir

Find out what happened in 1708 and why most of the castle is missing

Go into the Casa Orduña, rebuilt after it was burned in the same year

Walk down to the reservoir, which was started in 1953 and not finished until 1971

El Castell de Guadalest is entered through a tunnel cut in the rock, because there is no other way in. The Muslims built the castle of San José on the crag in the 11th century; in 1708, during the War of the Spanish Succession, it was blown up and the west wing was wrecked, and the Casa Orduña below was burned. What is left is a bell tower standing alone on a spike of rock above a turquoise reservoir, which is one of the most photographed views in the Valencian country. The reservoir itself was begun in 1953 and finished in 1971.

Guadalest: The Bell Tower on the Rock

Go into the municipal archaeological museum and find out which pieces are still there after the theft of 27 August 2026

Work out why the iron pieces matter: the oldest found in Spain, from when iron was still a precious metal

Find out who José María Soler García was and what he found near this town in 1963

Climb to the Atalaya castle on the hill above the town

Come for the Moros y Cristianos, which is one of the biggest in the Valencian country

The Villena archaeologist José María Soler García found the treasure in 1963: fifty-nine objects in gold, silver, iron and amber weighing almost ten kilos, the most important gold vessel hoard in Spain and the second in Europe after the royal tombs at Mycenae. Its iron pieces are the oldest found in Spain, from a period when iron was still a precious metal worth hoarding. On the night of 27 August 2026 much of it was stolen — mostly the gold, with several silver pieces left behind — so check what is actually on display before you go.

Villena: A Bronze Age Hoard of Gold

Climb up to the castle on its crag above the town

Find Juan Pacheco's coat of arms on the vault keystones and on the four faces of the keep

Walk the barbican and the round towers he added between 1449 and 1454

Visit the interpretation centre at the foot of the castle on the battle of 25 April 1707

Almansa's castle stands on a crag above the town. Its oldest walls, of rammed earth, were long taken for Almohad work, but tests during the 2008 restoration dated them to the first decades of Christian rule, around 1300; Don Juan Manuel rebuilt it in the 14th century, and Juan Pacheco, second Marquis of Villena, gave it its present shape between 1449 and 1454, with the keep, the round towers and the barbican, his arms carved on the vault keystones and on all four faces of the keep. On 25 April 1707, on the plain below, the Duke of Berwick's army for Philip V beat the forces of Archduke Charles in one of the great battles of the War of the Spanish Succession.

Almansa: The Castle on the Rock and the Battle of 1707

Get a ticket — since 2013 attendance has been capped at 22,000 and you cannot simply turn up

Watch the palo jabón, because the battle does not start until somebody gets the ham down

Be in the Plaza del Pueblo when the lorry beds tip and the whole load goes into the street

Work out the numbers: about 150 tonnes of tomatoes, six lorries, one hour

Stay for the hosing down afterwards and work out how the town is clean again by the afternoon

On the last Wednesday of August, during Buñol's patronal week, six lorries move slowly through the Calle San Luis, the Calle Cid and the Plaza del Pueblo distributing close to 150 tonnes of tomatoes, and 22,000 people — the cap since 2013 — throw them at each other for an hour. It starts when somebody manages to get the ham off the greased pole and the rocket goes up, usually around noon. The best moment is when the lorry beds tip and the whole load goes into the street. Then the fire brigade hoses everything down and the town is clean by mid-afternoon.

La Tomatina: A Hundred and Fifty Tonnes of Tomatoes

Walk the castle ridge, which runs the length of the hill and covers every period from Iberian to Napoleonic

Sit in the Roman theatre cut into the hillside below the castle

Work out what Hannibal actually wanted here: money, men and a fortress for his brother

Find the Jewish quarter on the slope below the castle, one of the best preserved in Valencia

Work out how an eight-month siege of one town started a war that reached Italy

Sagunto was the Iberian oppidum of Arse, trading across the Mediterranean from the 6th century BC, and it became Roman Saguntum. In 219 BC Hannibal besieged it, and the townspeople's whole strategy was that their walls would hold long enough for help to come. It took him eight months. He wanted the place intact — to fund the march on Rome with its plunder, to conscript its fit men, and to leave his brother Hasdrubal a stronghold near Qart Hadasht, modern Cartagena — and that is exactly what he got. The siege is the trigger for the Second Punic War.

Sagunto: Eight Months Against Hannibal

Look out at the bateas and work out what is hanging under each one and how long it takes to grow

Go out on a working mussel boat and see a rope hauled

Walk the Carreirón natural park at the south end of the island for the waders and the salt marsh

Eat mussels within sight of the rafts they came off, which is the whole point of being here

Work out the scale of what this ría produces relative to the rest of Europe

A Illa de Arousa is an island in the Ría de Arousa joined to the mainland by a two-kilometre bridge opened in 1985, and the water around it is full of bateas — floating timber rafts with ropes hanging beneath them growing mussels. Galicia produces more rope-grown mussels than anywhere in Europe and this ría produces more than any other part of Galicia. The southern end of the island is the Carreirón natural park, a low headland of salt marsh and pine where waders and wintering wildfowl come in, with beaches on both sides.