Sagunto lines up ten days of festivities for Valencian Community Day
Sagunto faces ten days of events for Valencian Community Day, from 25 September to 12 October, with a medieval market, bell-ringing, a mascletà and a city medal ceremony.
The city council has packed October's calendar with a wide programme around Valencian Community Day, coordinated by the Culture department and the Festivities and Popular Culture department together with local associations. Everything this year revolves around a single anniversary: 750 years since the death of King Jaume I, the king who granted Sagunto its Carta Puebla (founding charter) and, with it, its historic recognition as a city. Councillor for Culture Ana María Quesada made that link when presenting the programme. Beyond local residents, the date falls on Spain's October long weekend, when Sagunto typically draws visitors from elsewhere in the province, drawn by the castle and the old town; the medieval market itself, with its mix of stalls, live music and craft re-enactments, has in recent years become an extra draw for those combining a cultural visit with a stroll through the centre.
The first big draw is the medieval market, set up in Plaza Cronista Chabret and on the path up to the castle from 8 to 11 October. It will run in two shifts, morning and night, adding up to roughly ten hours of activity a day. The official opening, on Thursday 8 at 18:00, combines street theatre, historical re-enactments, medieval dance and workshops — both craft-based and aimed at children — designed to keep families busy for a full evening.
9 October carries most of the official events. At midday, the Casa Municipal de Cultura (municipal culture house) hosts the ceremony awarding the city's medals, an honour that this year goes to Socoltie, the Unión Musical Porteña music band, Margarita Pín, Paqui Roldán and the Falla Luis Cendoya — names already known, since the council had announced them weeks earlier. The city medal is the highest civil honour the council awards, recognising, each year, both associations and individuals it considers representative of the town's social, cultural or festive life; this year's list combines a social organisation, a music band and several careers linked to the world of local festivities. Shortly after, at 12:00, Plaza Mayor hosts a full bell-ringing performed by the Campaners de Morvedre, a tradition UNESCO lists as Intangible Cultural Heritage and one rarely opened up to the public like this. At 14:00, a mascletà (a daytime firework display built around rhythm and noise) in Plaza Picasso kicks off the community lunch that closes the morning for many residents.
In the afternoon, the celebrations spread across several corners of the city: at 18:30, traditional dance from the Associació Cultural Danses Valencianes Els Fallers at the open-air auditorium at Triángulo Umbral; at 19:30, the Grup de Danses de Morvedre takes over in Plaza Cronista Chabret; and at 23:00, closing out the day, the Panorama orchestra performs at the Internúcleos space on Avenida Fausto Caruana, a venue the council has used for several recent concerts.
The programme runs beyond the main day. On Saturday 10, the Falla La Victoria group holds a music event with food trucks at its clubhouse from 18:00. On Monday 12, marking the feast of the Virgen del Pilar, the Centro Cultural y Recreativo Aragonés brings folk dance displays to Teatro de Begoña at 12:30, while the Casa de Aragón repeats the format half an hour later in Plaza Cronista Chabret.
Much of this calendar also overlaps with another pillar of Sagunto's festive year: the Moros y Cristianos (Moors and Christians) festival, a traditional re-enactment event running from 25 September to 4 October. In that same stretch, the Casa de Aragón gives a talk on Jaume I's anniversary at the Auditorio Joaquín Rodrigo on 2 October; the Unión Musical Porteña performs alongside another band at the Casa Municipal de Cultura on Saturday 3; and the Orpheo awards are handed out, also at the Auditorio Joaquín Rodrigo, on Sunday 4.
The date adds to a festive calendar that leaves Sagunto little breathing room as autumn begins: weeks earlier, in summer, the Roman Theatre usually hosts performances tied to the Ludi Saguntini festival, and this same October brings, besides Valencian Community Day, the close of the Moros y Cristianos festival and the events around the long weekend. For the council's Culture department, stringing these dates together — part of a tradition of markets and re-enactments that in recent years has become one of the old town's tourism trademarks — also has a practical effect: it draws visitors to the area around the castle and Plaza Cronista Chabret at a time of year when local shops and hospitality businesses tend to notice the extra footfall from outside the town, which indirectly benefits small businesses along the festive route, though the council has not given any specific economic-impact figures this time.
Mayor Darío Moreno presented the programme together with Councillor Quesada and Ricardo Melià, president of the Asociación Cultural Penyes de Festes Patronals de Sagunt (the association of traditional festival groups). Moreno thanked the associations for pulling together what he called "the big day for Valencian people" and stressed that the tribute to Jaume I runs through much of this year's programme, in a town that continues to highlight its historical ties to the Crown of Aragon. Joint organisation with local associations, a regular feature of Sagunto's biggest dates, is repeated again this year as a way of sharing the workload between community groups and the administration rather than leaving it entirely to council staff.
According to aytosagunto.es.