Surprise In The Middle Of Nature

A real surprise it was indeed, to find some unexpected gems in one of the hikes we made recently. Double surprise, as in this same path we found some interesting mushrooms, that came last Friday to the blog of the writer of this post. Do you remember the "witches and devils" post? Yes, on the same day, same friends, same mountains, we found another surprise, a monastery in the middle of nature. This time, I didnt hide from the cover photo the surprising part of the post, ( @qwerrie ;D ) but still, I will start from the beginning, ie from the path, and the ruins will come later.

As I mentioned in the post with mushrooms, we had a day off on the first of November. We agreed with friends that we would spend the day together, and there were more options to choose from. Since it was raining lightly in those days, and we were not sure if the same thing would happen that day, we left open the possibility to spend the day in the center of Valencia, with umbrellas. In case of nice weather, we would go to the nearby mountains for hiking. That's what happened, the morning brought a few clouds, but much more of the sun. We can see, the mountains and nature won the "competition".

As they live nearby, and already visited once this place, they proposed the route, to the valley of Murta, located near town Alzira, Spain. I was not sure what Murta is, but we saw some boards where it was explained, it is the name of a bush Myrtus communis, that can be found there. I tried one berry from that shrub, it was bitter and sour. The other, red berry kind of fruits, from the strawberry tree - Arbutus unedo were so sweet. I loved them. Apart from tasting them, I managed a few close up photos:

It was not all about tasting berries and just talking with those friends. It was a bit of sweating too, as there were parts of the route where we were going higher and higher, so the jokes were not missing about who will carry the jackets, backpacks, and other stuff. Or even, could we carry each other on the shoulders ;)) Btw, this route is an approved and signposted route, actually there are several marked trails. We took one that was of middle difficulty. What we could enjoy were the views, the pure air, vegetation, the mushrooms and the surprise that I didnt know we could see there. The ruins of a monastery.

In the previous photo, the path is actually a bridge, Felipe II bridge, built between the 14th and 15th century, the same as the monastery. The bridge has been restored several times. When we crossed the bridge, we saw the main entrance of the monastery, actually just the ruins of it. The structure of the entrance is still standing but it is in bad condition. It is forbidden to pass to the interior, as it is dangerous. The construction of the Monastery of Santa María de la Murta (also called The Monastery of "los Jerónimos") bagan in the 14th century. The architectural style is framed within the Valencian Gothic style.

The Torre dels Coloms (Tower of the Doves) was built in 1528 and is the most representative of the monastery and the complex of buildings. It is the best condition of the whole monument. From the 19th century, all the constructions began to be abandoned and hardly anything has been done since then. Just in 1989, the Alzira city council acquired the valley, beginning the recovery of all the cultural and natural elements. In 2002, it was declared a Site of Cultural Interest as a monument. The source of this last information is in Spanish, but you can see also the wikiloc page, how to get there and the paths that can be taken.

We didnt need wikiloc for this path, as it was not so difficult and it was well marked. Also, maybe we got some help from this cool carved stump in the shape of a monk, who wanted to take this #WednesdayWalk with us, but, he couldn't move a lot from his place.