Xàtiva Castle

On a limestone ridge above the plain south of Valencia, a long double-crested silhouette marks the site of one of the most historically loaded fortresses in Spain. The Castell de Xàtiva — two connected castles on two separate summits, the Menor (older) and the Major (larger), linked by a walled passageway — commands a panoramic view over the town of Xàtiva and the fertile plain stretching to the Mediterranean. The site has been fortified continuously since at least the Iberian period; the Romans called the city Saetabis and it was one of the most important textile-producing centres in Hispania; the Moors called it Shatibi and used it as a key stronghold of the taifa of Valencia. The castle you see today is the result of 2,000 years of layered construction — and it holds one of the most pointed acts of political protest in European museum history.

In 1707, Xàtiva made the worst political calculation of its history. When the War of the Spanish Succession divided Europe between Philip V of Bourbon and Archduke Charles of Habsburg, Xàtiva supported the Habsburg claim. Philip V won the war. His response to the city that had opposed him was systematic: in 1707 his forces burned Xàtiva to the ground, killing much of the population and forcing survivors to flee. The town was renamed San Felipe — erasing even the name of the city — and remained so for a century, until the name Xàtiva was restored after Philip's dynasty had passed. In the castle museum, in the Sala de los Retratos (Portrait Hall), a portrait of Philip V of Spain hangs on the wall. Upside down. It has hung that way, by municipal decision, for over 300 years. No official agreement has ever restored it to the correct orientation. The inverted portrait is one of the more eloquent acts of institutional memory in European civic culture — and one of the more photographed objects in the Valencia region.

The twin castle complex divides clearly between the two periods of its major construction. The Castell Menor is the older section, with Moorish and early Christian-era construction dating from the 11th century; it includes some of the earliest surviving stonework on the ridge. The Castell Major is larger and was substantially built and expanded during the Christian kingdom of Valencia in the 13th through 15th centuries. Between them, the walled walkway offers an exceptional ridge-top experience, with views over the Albaida valley to the south and the Xàtiva plain to the north. The total fortification extends over several hundred metres along the ridge and includes towers, cisterns, a chapel (the ermita de Sant Josep), and the museum building where the upside-down portrait waits.

Xàtiva was also, remarkably, the birthplace of two popes. Alfons de Borja, born here in 1378, became Pope Calixtus III in 1455; his nephew Rodrigo de Borja, born in Xàtiva in 1431, became Pope Alexander VI in 1492 — the most controversial pope of the Renaissance, whose name in its Italian form became synonymous with nepotism, political machination, and spectacular personal excess. The Borja family's association with Xàtiva, Valencia, Gandia, and eventually Rome forms a specific cultural circuit for anyone following the dynasty that gave the world its most notorious papacy and its most celebrated family scandal.

The GYG day trip (t1348016, $81, 8 hours from Valencia) combines Xàtiva with a visit to Bocairent — a medieval village in the mountains of the Vall d'Albaida, approximately 40 km south of Xàtiva. Bocairent is known for 'Les Covetes dels Moros' — a series of pre-Islamic cave galleries carved into a sandstone cliff face, whose precise origin and purpose remain debated — and for its remarkably preserved medieval street plan with whitewashed houses and a historic bullring embedded directly into the cliff. The combination covers two entirely distinct historical experiences in a single day from Valencia: the ridge-top castle with its centuries of military and political drama, and the intimate mountain village with its carved caves and pedestrianised medieval centre.