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This Time, Morella

We have family in the country. Our niece and nephew Katy and Joe along with their daughter Elsa are in Barcelona for a year teaching. We hadn’t visited them yet so over Halloween or more properly All Saint’s Day we caught the train up to BCN, rented a car and took them up into the foothills of the Pyrenees to see some fall col

We wanted to take advantage of my shiny new Spanish driver’s license, so we made reservations with our usual car rental company. On Friday the 31st, we grabbed a cab to the train station to pick up our car, Spanish ID, temporary permit and “rookie” card in hand. At the rental office we were informed that the rental company wouldn’t rent a car to us on a license less than a year old. OK I said, and pulled out my Washington driver’s license whereupon I was informed that I also needed an International Driver’s Permit — a first for us with this company. They absolutely would not rent to us even though we had rented from them several times before.

The agent essentially told us I should go get my passport (which I had left at home since I have Spanish ID) and rent from the agency next door so we parked Cindy in the restaurant at the station and I cabbed back to the apartment, grabbed my passport and hightailed it back, where we went to the other company and rented a car…at 4x the original quoted price from company #1. Ugh.

Rental acquired, we stopped in the parking lot, put the L card in the back window and got the hell out of town.

Our destination: Morella, a little town up the coast a bit from Valencia, in the hills. It is listed by Spain as one of the most beautiful towns in the country, and its position in the hills makes it a great location for hiking.

Morella’s location is historically important as the choke point between “the plains of the river Ebro to the north west and the coastal plains of Valencia and Castellon” so “[f]rom the early 17th century to the Spanish Civil War, the town was often fought over, due to its strategic situation” [Wikipedia]. This location in the mountains also makes it a great place to base oneself for some hiking.

We arrived in Forcall (for-caya), a neighboring town at the confluence of the Cantavella and Calders rivers, that was the only place that had hotel space for us, late in the afternoon of New Year’s Eve. After getting settled in, we went out seeking hiking grub for the next couple of days. The “supermarket” in the town of 450 souls was closed for the weekend so we hopped back into the car to make a drive up the highway to the nearest larger town, where the market was also closed. Down the road in the other direction we went, to Morella where at least the Consum was open and we got fruit, meat, crackers and some potato chips for the hike.

We popped into the town inside the castle wall to get a peek at the place. The Christmas lights were still up in the streets and, just at dusk, it made a lovely first impression.

Christmas lights and porticoes lend some credence to the “beautiful town” boosters. No street is entirely level in this hill town and it gives Toledo a run for its money for narrow hilly streets in the center.
These four meter tall effigies represent the ongoing cooperation between the Europeans and the Moors in Morella and are brought out annually for a celebration of diversity.

It was getting to be dinner time, but a quick peek at the restaurant scene in town indicated that the only open restaurants were offering tapas, not a good thing for Cindy because in Valencia, tapas means something on bread, mostly. No problem, we thought, the hotel has a restauarant, so we hopped back into the car and made our way back to Forcall. As it turns out, the hotel restaurant only offers breakfast, no dinner, and the other restaurant in town is closed for NYE. We were unable to find any other open restaurant so we ended up eating part of our hiking snacks and drinking a bottle of cava provided by the hotel in our room. Woo, happy New Year. We were both asleep by about 12:15.

Saturday morning, New Year’s Day, we lazed about a bit in the morning, thinking we had about a 7 mile hike to Morella from the hotel. Breakfast was very nice, a continental-style affair but with fresh loaves of bread (Cindy was even able to get some gluten free), fruit, yogurt, and plenty of coffee. We were off on our hike shortly before noon. Our route took us across the Calders river and then straight up to just below the peak of the neighboring hill that marked the start of the ridge we would follow all the way to Morella.

Looking up at where we’d be hiking in about an hour
Crossing the raging Calders river
The entrance to a hermitage partway up the slope to the knob
Bits of the first part of the hike were steep enough to require assistance
Top of the knob, looking north along the river valley. Well, not Cindy, she’s looking south at you.
Forcall from the top of the knob. The countryside in the area has been under cultivation for thousands of years and all of the hills are terraced, although much of it doesn’t appear to be being farmed now.
We hiked around the north side of the knob and then northeast under the top of the knob, through scrub oak and pine, largely in shade for half the hike.
Our first glimpse of Morella from the trail, the castle is sticking up there off in the distance.
Farmland in the valley below us
Dramatic rock is dramatic
We stopped for lunch at the first place we found the sun. Our traverse took us across the top of the cliffs at the level Cindy is seated; this is the point where the cliffs ended and the trail dropped to a lower ridge that carried us further east toward Morella
Yr. humble correspondent. The ridge in the top right corner of the photo is what we followed to a point opposite the town
Looking back up the trail to the cliffs in the picture above.
Morella across the valley. This is about where the official trail ended according to Wikiloc
Our well-earned beer after the hike. They even had gluten free for Cindy
The hike was a bit further than advertised; the Wikiloc trail ended at the top of the ridge across from town — another couple of miles away

After the hike, the plan had always been to grab a cab from Morella back to Forcall, it’s only about 10 KM by road. We did not count on the fact that Morella has no taxi service. Further, we didn’t count on Forcall’s one taxi driver to be taking a New Years holiday. Cindy headed into the bar to see if she could find someone who would be willing to give us a ride while I called the hotel to see what they could do. It was getting dark at this point and we were beginning to worry we’d have to figure out how to walk back. Fortunately the hotel found a taxi driver who was willing to come fetch us from somewhere a half hour plus away and for a mere € 50 we were whisked back to our hotel in minivan luxury.

Cindy had had the presence of mind to find a restaurant nearby that would be open so after a little rest, we headed to the nearby town of Cinctorres for dinner. The restaurant was very nice and more importantly open and we had a very nice wine and a good salad. For the main course I ordered a steak. Cindy thought she was ordering a pork filet but what she ended up with was trotters — pig’s feet. The waitress looked at her a little funny and confirmed the order; we somehow missed “manitos” de cerdo — pig’s little hands. That part of the dinner was not a success but the dessert was nice.

On Sunday we just hung out in Morella, not really feeling up to another big hike. We ended up spending a couple hours wandering through town and visiting the castle.

The castle absolutely looms over you on approach.
Opportunistic building techniques incorporated the natural walls into living spaces.
Looking down past the fortifications to the inevitable church and the valley beyond.
The Morella aqueduct, constructed in the Middle Ages after the Moors were dislodged from the area.

Later Sunday night we returned to Morella for a very nice dinner at one of the hotels, no major adventures were had.

On our way back to the car we encountered this steeply descending street with more holiday decorations.

We decided to do a short hike out of Xiva before we drove back to the city on Monday. Thanks to the slightly odd roads around Morella, we found ourselves on the wrong side of town before we finally consulted Mr. Google, who decided to route us through the boondocks rather than direct us to U-turn. This turned into a delightful side trip to the “back” side of Morella, where we got to see a view of the town that we imagine far fewer tourists have seen.

Our route brought us back to Morella and then on to Xiva, a tiny village upriver from Morella, where we got out for a little leg stretcher into the hills.

It’s dryland out there, and rocky soil. Still, they were actively farming and raising animals too. Fences were dry stone walls.
Windmills were our only companions.

And with that, our mini adventure was done. The drive back to Vallencia was uneventful and we were home in time for cocktails.

steveinvlc

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