Exploring the hill town of Morella

We arrive to the mountain town of Morella after dark so we just want to go straight to our hotel for the night. So we have set up the gps for the address of the hotel hoping the gps will actually take us straight to the hotel.

We get to the famous walls of the city and drive through a gate and follow the instructions of the gps to get us driving through the town. We keep going through the old town until we reach another gate. Here the gps tells us to go a little bit up a very narrow street to our destination. It doesn’t look very promising so we decide to just drive through the gate – fortunately there is a parking spot right outside the gate. We park the car and decide to try to find the hotel on foot.

We walk up a narrow street the hotel supposedly should be somewhere up the hill – first we pass a little stair which apparently isn’t the way to the hotel instead we continue to a little square and a very narrow road up the hill. Here the gps claims we have reach the hotel – but we can’t see the entrance to the hotel. We look around and after a bit we decide to have a look inside a little restaurant which isn’t open but there are some people present. They tell us the hotel is up the stairs so we go up the stairs and find the entrance to the hotel. We actually had reached the hotel building which was just opposite the restaurant at the bottom of the stairs but the entrance to the hotel was at the top of the stairs.

• 

• 

• 

When we are checking in at the hotel we are told it is fine to leave the car where we parked it – apparently there is free parking outside the city wall – unlike inside the city wall where there is limited parking allowed. We get our room and walk back to the car to pick up the luggage – we had left it behind since we didn’t want to be carrying the bags around when we were searching for the hotel.

The hotel is a nice old hotel in the old charming Placio del Ram. We decide to just hang out in the room for a bit until we get to the normal Spanish dinner time. When it is finally around 8 we go out to search for a place to eat. We have found a few places which apparently should be good restaurants close to the hotel and we go out in the narrow main street of the center. There are a few bars and smaller restaurants at this street but the three restaurants we all were searching for are all closed – so in the end we just go back to the hotel restaurants which actually have a New Year day special on the menu. We have the food which is pretty decent and after dinner we go out to have a quick look at the old town.

The city is pretty in the dark with the lights in the streets. There are a few people inside some of the bars but there is virtually nobody out in the streets so we have the city to ourselves tonight. We go down the street outside our hotel which has a lot of columns next to the street along all the houses. It is a nice little walk along the street which is probably the nicest of all the small streets in Morella. After we get to the end of the street we continue to the end of the city where there is a gate to the city. We go outside the gate to have a look at the gate with the lights on the gate. The gate and wall look pretty in the dark.

We walk back along the inside of the wall of the city when we get to the gate at the other end of the city we have a quick look outside before we walk back to the hotel up the narrow street and stair.

The next morning we go out to explore the city a bit more. It is busier during daylight when the locals seem to have come out from hiding. Supposedly the city can get really cold in the winter and we saw it apparently had been freezing during the night but we didn’t get up too early since we are heading up to the famous fortress of the city which doesn’t open until 11. The fortress on top of the hill is the main attraction of the city and well worth a visit.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

After the visit to the fortress we could go a bit more around the city but decide we have already seen what is to see we only go to the small Garden of the Poets and then back to the hotel to get some lunch and pick up our bags.