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Sagunto
Location
Sagunto or Sagunt (Valenciano) is an ancient city approx 30 km north of Valencia that has a rich history. El Cid, Moors, Romans have all had an impact.
Travelling time from Monte Pego: 1hr 30 mins (120 Kms)
Our Day
We travelled to Sagunto in our little 'Postman Pat' car, on a beautiful August day, (When isn’t it a beautiful day?) a little navigating away from the industrial port area took us to the town itself. Parking was easy, although the charging was confusing A very helpful ‘Policia Local’ that spoke no English and with my limited Spanish (must learn more) led to a very interesting 15 mins, She was very helpful and I think I got the gist of it. Basically the siesta period is not charged in your parking, so if you arrive say at 1pm, and the local Siesta is 2-5 pm, and if you buy a three hour ticket (€3), your hours will be, charged for 1pm -2pm and then 5pm -7pm. This is really fair, and inexpensive.
We parked up and I was full of my memories of the place and excitedly took my family on the tour, only to be surprised to find the whole place deserted, literally deserted, we found about three people (tourists) wandering around, the local tourist office open, and our lovely police lady, it was as if a Hollywood epic was being filmed and the script for the movie called for lots of scenes of empty deserted streets. Being subjected to the constant haranguing of my family we began to walk towards the entrance of the cobbled ascent to the Castle and Roman Amphitheatre. Mistake one was to stop at the first cafe we came to, which was open. We were greeted by a lovely waiter not far off Manuel 
from ‘Farty Towers’, he had us in fits, very friendly, wearing a really soiled sweat band on his head, what he lacked in personal grooming he made up for in friendliness, but given that we were probably his reason d’être for the day you can sort of understand it. We were handed a lovely laminated menu and we all ordered the house dish, pork steak and chips, (How adventurous!), the pork steaks were those ‘minute steak’ things that are in the ‘blue and white’ range at Tesco (I have been told this first hand from my son who knows someone who shops at Tesco – not welcome at our house!) in our parlance in line with 'Waitrose essentials'. Then the bill, which if memory serves me right reflected having a meal cooked for you by Michel Roux junior. Any way we didn’t moan, paid. left tip, thanked the waiter (I think he was also the owner as he gave my daughter a boiled sweet from his pocket)
We then began our ascent only to be greeted by numerous really attractive cafes, and tapas bars (oh why at 52 have I not learnt to wait?) so did the dutiful thing and blamed the wife! Which of course she accepted as being completely her fault!
First stop the Roman theatre that had been restored in recent years to become a blend of modern and ancient, I personally think it works well the acoustics and atmosphere are awesome, (based on my visit in 2007) however local opinion is mixed. But would you believe it, when we climbed the ancient roman steps that the likes of Tony Curtis (Passed away yesterday, lovely bloke looks just like my mate Jason!) anyway as normal I have strayed, we climbed the steps with numerous shouts from me to my wife and kids of ‘ You just wait till you see this!’, got to the gate and...... the mother of all chains barred our entry, stared at the chain for quite a few minutes convinced that my considerable telepathic powers, would make it fall to the ground, that didn’t work so rattled the gate and the chain, that didn’t work! Read the sign, in Spanish - that didn’t work, as yes my understanding of written Spanish is as limited as my knowledge of the spoken – (reminds me must learn Spanish), why not go the whole hog and learn Valenciano and really impress my kids. So putting on a brave smile and uttering comments that sounded like ‘Must be half day’ and failing to convince the Marleys we turned around and just soaked up the rays and the glorious view. I Knew that if I offered to buy cold drinks I would restore some belief in my ability as a knowledgeable Padre, with the Marley’s. So we had our drink, and looked up to the ancient walls of the Moorish Castle, now I could become really creative here and lie to you and spend several paragraphs telling you how wonderful the climb was, how beautiful the Moorish architecture, but I need to come clean, the Marleys were more than happy to look up the hill to the beautiful ancient walls, and imagine what wonderful views there are, (Don’t forget ‘El Marley Cheyne’ has been there before), we were convinced the castle would also be closed!
We soaked up from our vantage point, outside the bar the genuinely awesome atmosphere of Sagunto.
Once satiated, we began our ‘Thomas Cook’ tour back down through the ancient town, taking photographs as we went.
Stopped in Main Square, which was still deserted and watched my daughter let ice cram run al over her face! 
Overall impression:
- Lovely place, but need to check next time whether town is closed
- Avoid the first place you come to to eat.
- Wear flat shoes
- Learn Spanish
- Definitely go back, and would recommend as a must go to place. It was my fault (Yes you heard right – my fault) that I didn’t check out essentials
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Cheyne Marley 2010
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