Elda-Petrer | 2 cities combined into one conurbation 👠

Modern Day Elda-Petrer

Elda & Petrer are 2 distinct individual cities speaking their own languages, one Spanish & one Valencian. There has historically been difficulties between the neighbours & various disputes throughout the years. Lordships granting more land to one than the other etc, sounds remarkably similar to Scottish history 😂.

The whole conurbation has lovely architecture, beautiful narrow winding streets, colourful houses, holy buildings & awesome street art.

Something rather unique about this area is the shoes. I like shoes, they stop my feet from getting cut & bruised when outside walking however, I wouldn’t say I was a massive fan. Although, within Elda, shoes used to be a major industry & all over the town you can see shoe statues & equipment that was used to make shoes, they even have a shoe Museum! I really need to start taking my own advice & planning ahead, the Museum was closed when I went unfortunately 🤭

Story time 📔

Elda Castle, whilst beautiful looking from a distance & on Google Maps, is near on impossible to find the entrance! Wandering around trying to get in, I felt like I was trying to get the Gold on Fort Boyard & the Tigers were coming to eat me. The outer perimeter of it is quite big & as usual with any half decent Castle, it is perched up high on a hill. After going in circles, I eventually just gave up on finding the entrance, having also consulted Google to find out the Castle was closed anyway 😂, I should just re-name this blog to “Plan ahead people!”

There is lovely park that you should definitely stop by called “Parc El Campet”. It has a lovely walking route, a cool stage for performances, plenty of shade to hide from the sun & an awesome little waterfall etc. However, stay alert! One of the locals has what can only be described as a terminator dog. I love animals, especially dogs & I am not afraid of them in general, but this dog looked like it was bred in the pits of Isengard.

The dog was just trying to be playful by jumping up on me, but I don’t know enough Spanish to talk to a dog 😂, I just let out a tumultuous squeak & mumbled something about the ‘mascota’ being ‘bonito’. It’s amazing how quickly you forget words when a big ass dog is trying to have you for supper. At the time, I was sat on the ledge of a pond under a waterfall trying to do one of those really cheesy waterfall selfie videos. In the melee I fell back a little into the waterfall & also dropped my phone in the pond. I got it back out very quickly, thankfully it still works. I would have been devastated as I only just bought the phone after breaking my old one in Morocco less than a month before!

Photos from the trip 📸