Sagunto celebrates Sephardic September with free tours of the Jewish Quarter
Sagunto's Sephardic September runs from 12 to 27 September with guided tours of the Jewish Quarter and Grau Vell, a family treasure hunt and discounts for shopping locally, marking the European Day of Jewish Culture.
Sagunto City Council will launch, from 12 to 27 September, a new edition of Sephardic September, the programme through which the tourism department (Concejalía de Turismo) spends several weeks each year recovering the trace of the Jewish community expelled from the city centuries ago. The schedule is timed, as in previous years, to the European Day of Jewish Culture, an observance that shapes much of the cultural agenda on these dates.
The guided-tour calendar covers two settings. In Grau Vell (a coastal area with historic remains), the tour of the site known as Sagunt Sefardí will run on three evenings —12, 19 and 26 September— starting at 18:00, plus a morning session on 20 September at 11:00. In the Jewish Quarter (Judería), by contrast, visits are concentrated at night: 12, 18, 19 and 25 September, departing at 22:30. The schedule closes on Sunday 27 September with a treasure hunt aimed at families, running through the neighbourhood from 11:00 so children can learn its history through play.
There is also an incentive for local shops: between 1 and 25 September, any purchase receipt reaching €30 at a business carrying the SICTED label (Spain's official tourism quality certification) turns into two tickets — valid for the night route through the Jewish Quarter, the themed visit to the Fortín del Grau Vell, or the closing treasure hunt — and from €60 the number of tickets rises to four. To claim them, visitors bring the stamped receipt to one of two municipal Tourism offices — the one in the historic centre, at Plaza Cronista Chabret, or the one in the port district, at Avenida Mediterráneo 67 — or send it by email.
Aside from the in-person routes, a mobile-friendly alternative will run throughout September: the treasure hunt 'El secreto del Rabino' ('The Rabbi's Secret'), a free game with no sign-up and no app to install, which moves the story onto the city's own streets. Finishing the challenge and rating the experience unlocks — while stocks last — a promotional pack from the Tourism department, collected at Casa dels Berenguer (a historic building used as a cultural venue).
Added to that is the contest that the Network of Jewish Quarters of Spain (Red de Juderías de España) runs every September on social media: posing in front of a heart-shaped panel set up in the same courtyard and sharing the photo tagging @redjuderias. The theme chosen for this seventh call, 'Amor (Love)', points to the Sephardic community's attachment to its origins after the expulsion. The organising network — which brings together Spanish towns with recognised Jewish heritage — was founded in 1995 by eight member towns, and Sagunto is among its more recent members, having joined in 2019.
Sephardic September has, over several editions, become a fixture on Sagunto's cultural calendar that combines heritage and local economy: on one hand it puts the Jewish Quarter, one of the most distinctive corners of Sagunto's old town (Sagunto Centro), on the tourist map; on the other, it channels some of that footfall to small shops in the historic centre through the spending discount. The Jewish Quarter ranks, alongside the Roman Theatre and the Castle, among the sites Sagunto promotes year-round as part of its heritage offer, and September concentrates much of the programming built specifically around that Sephardic legacy. For the Camp de Morvedre district, an area whose economy has traditionally revolved around heavy industry and is now diversifying toward heritage tourism and electric mobility, initiatives like this add one more reason to draw visitors outside the beach season.
Full schedules, meeting points and the terms of the shopping promotion are available on the Sagunt Turismo website. According to El Periódico de Aquí, with additional background from Wikipedia on the Network of Jewish Quarters of Spain.