Castle on top of Morella

High above the city of Morella is an old fortress the fortress is the main stronghold of the fortified city where the forces defending the city could make a last stand if the walls of the lower city was breeched. Today the fortress has been made into a museum and along with the walls of the city it is the main attraction of the city of Morella.

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The fortress is located high on the hill so a visit to the fortress will naturally involve an uphill hike from the city to the fortress. When we get to the bottom of the fortress we pay the admission fee and go inside – down here is a little extra attraction in the form of the former convent of San Francisco. The convent is in a pretty bad shape but outside there is the remains of column around and outside courtyard which has probably been impressive back in the day when it was part of the convent.

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The main feature of the convent is the old church which is left bare with no furniture or decoration inside so you can only have a look at the pretty big open room.

Next to the church is another room which has some old frescos which apparently is pretty famous. Unfortunately the frescoes are pretty deteriorated so it is hard to make out the scenes which should have been there back when the frescoes actually were complete.

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After the quick visit to the convent we start making our way up to the fortress itself. It is a long narrow path up there. The trail is an old cobbled trail up towards the top of the fortress. Along the way up we walk along an extra wall which helped protect the castle on top from attacks from an enemy army. You can see how difficult it must have been in the old day for an attacking force to make it up to the top without being fired at and kill in the process.

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After a bit of walking we arrive at the first gate to the fortress where the defenders could shut the gate and make it even more difficult for the attackers to make it up the hill. We walk through the gate and after a bit we reach a cannon which dates to a bit more modern era than the original fortress. The guns could fire on the landscape below for miles away from this elevated position.

We get to a stair leading up to the highest part of the hill. First we have to go through the final gate leading to the inner fortress on the very top of the hill. On the top of the hills are some old building – but there really isn’t that much to see when it comes to the old buildings up here. The main attraction is the amazing view of the city below with its wall. There is also a good view of the landscape of the area and an old aqueduct down below which used to supply the city with water dating back to the roman era.

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We head down the hill again and when we drove away from the city after lunch we stopped for gas on the main highway. This was actually pretty fortunate since we looked back to the city and saw the great view of the castle on the top of the hill above the city. We hadn’t seen this when we arrived because we came to Morella after sunset the day before.