Exploring Pego
Waterland, Arab fortresses, ghostly churches and nature: Exploring Pego this summer
START or finish your day by exploring Pego's most beautiful sights and uncovering the wealth of stories they have to tell.
Early-morning or evening trips ranging from one to six kilometres and taking from 90 minutes to four hours, run by the local tourism office, scratch below the surface of this sleepy market town and showcase its rich history, stunning architecture and sublime countryside in a way that will have you feeling as though this is the first time you've ever set foot within its borders.
Tours are free of charge, but need to be booked at least 24 hours in advance (by calling 966 40 08 43 or 699 762 815, via WhatsApp, or email to pegoilesvalls@touristinfo.net) and all the usual Covid-19 precautions apply (social distancing and compulsory maskwearing).
SATURDAY, AUGUST 1
19.00: Pego as a town started inside its iconic hilltop Ambra Castle (pictured) on the Vall d'Ebo road – built as a defence point and fortress during the Mediaeval era, it had residential houses constructed in its inner walls where the Arab inhabitants went about their lives. Not an easy spot to visit on your own, tomorrow's free guided tour gives you a unique chance to access it and find out how this formidable structure was key to Pego's early history.
The walk takes about threeand-a-half hours and covers around five kilometres.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 5
22.00: Heading uphill again, but this time with a magical, bewitching, haunted feel to it – visiting Pego's mountaintop hermitage chapels at night is a romantic experience, halfway between a fantasy film or fairytale and a gothic novel or ghost story.
The walk is around six kilometres and takes about twoand-a-half hours.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 8
09.00: Pego's waterland is partly about its Moorish history, partly its rice-growing tradition, and partly its stunning natural landscape replete with endangered species of plants and creatures, including birds of prey – golden eagles are a fairly common sight here. A refreshing early-morning tour in a rural Eden, not too taxing at just a kilometre in length, takes around 90 minutes.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 14
19.00: If you missed Ambra Castle the first time around, here's your second chance to see it – or head up there again if you enjoyed it so much that once was not enough.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 21
19.30: In the daytime, Pego old town is just the bit where you do your boring daily errands; in the evening, with an experienced guide, you'll realise you haven't been looking at it properly. Streaming with history, the back lanes of Pego with their picturesque architecture tell centuries of stories of ordinary people leading ordinary, but somehow fascinating, lives. A two-hour walk covering a very manageable 2.5 kilometres.
SATURDAY, AUGUST 28
19.30: A two-hour evening stroll around a four-kilometre circuit taking in the Pego Sea. Or this is what we're told. Does Pego have a hidden beach you didn't know about? Or are you heading to the coast? Put your name down and find out – but it's guaranteed to be an interesting and thoroughly enjoyable way to spend your Saturday night.