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 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

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

Be in the basilica on 14 or 15 August for one of the two acts

Watch the machinery — the araceli lowered from the dome, which is stagecraft that has been running since the 16th century

Work out what is preserved here: text and music fixed by the end of the 1500s and sung ever since

Find out why every role including the Virgin is sung by a male, and what medieval rule that comes from

Go to the Museu de la Festa to see how the machinery works when the basilica is not full

The Misteri d'Elx is a sacred music drama of the Dormition, Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin, performed in two acts on 14 and 15 August inside the Basilica of Santa María at Elche. The text cannot be older than the last third of the 15th century and text and music were fixed by the end of the 16th; only the melismas have moved since. Every part, including the Virgin, is sung by a male, preserving the medieval liturgical rule that barred women from these plays. UNESCO proclaimed it a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on 18 May 2001.

The Misteri d'Elx: A Medieval Play Never Interrupted

Walk the Huerto del Cura and the huertos around it and work out that the grid is an irrigation plan, not a landscape design

Work out the numbers: 200,000 to 300,000 palms across 500 hectares inside a working city

Find out how the white palm fronds for Palm Sunday are made — tied up and kept from the light to bleach

Follow the irrigation channels and find out how far back the system goes

Eat the dates, which are the other thing the grove is actually for

Between 200,000 and 300,000 date palms grow across about 500 hectares inside the city of Elche — the largest palm grove in Europe and one of the largest in the world, beaten only by some in the Arab world. The main species is Phoenix dactylifera, brought to Iberia by the Muslims. The irrigation system underneath it is older still: an Iberian scheme, adapted and extended by the Romans and reorganised into the ordered grid of huertos that is there now. UNESCO listed it on 30 November 2000.

The Palm Grove of Elche

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

Get to a hide at El Hondo at first light, which is when the ducks are on the open water

Look for marbled teal and white-headed duck, two species that nearly went and largely did not

Work out that these reservoirs were built for irrigation and became a reserve by accident

Go across to the Santa Pola salinas for the flamingos and the waders

Work out how the three wetlands function as one system for birds moving through

El Hondo, the Santa Pola salinas and the La Mata and Torrevieja lagoons form a triangle of wetlands on the Alicante coast that is critical to the biological cycles of a very large number of birds — on migration, breeding and wintering. El Hondo is the freshwater end of it, a set of reservoirs and reedbeds built for irrigation that turned into one of the most important bird sites in Spain, and it holds one of the few reliable populations of marbled teal and white-headed duck in Europe, both of which came close to disappearing.

El Hondo and the Santa Pola Salt Pans

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.