Peniscola (or Peñíscola in Spanish) is a stunning little village built up a cliff surrounded by the sea, with beautiful white houses and tiny cobblestone streets. Peniscola is part of the Valencian Community, the Castellon Region, on the on the Azahar Coast. It’s part of the association of Los Pueblos Más Bonitos de España (the most beautiful villages in Spain) since 2011. If that didn’t catch your interest, it was also the place for filming the Game of Thrones season 6 (The city of Meeren)! Spending one day is Peniscola is a great idea to explore this beautiful hidden gem.
Is it worth visiting Peniscola?
Absolutely yes! There is something for everybody: history geeks, beach lovers, day trippers, foodies and people who love architecture or coastal dreamy towns. We visited it in August and it was filled with people, we loved that it was so animated! Although I am sure that visiting in off-season has its charm also.
What can you do in Peniscola?
Peniscola is so stunning, a tiny village surrounded by turquoise sea, with cobblestone narrow streets, you can literally just walk around, admiring the buildings and listening to the sea and you will have a great time! But let’s see what else is out there!
Check out the spot where Game of Thrones was filmed
There is a great photo spot, just at the entrance of the old city, where Tyrion walked with Varys at the beginning of the 6th season of Game of Thrones. You can even recreate the photo! The exact location is right here. There are also guides you can do for more in depth info.
Visit the Peniscola Castle (Castillo de Peñíscola)
This castle is a like a time portal to medieval times. Peniscola Castle was built in on the ruins of an older castle around 1307. It has an interesting history with a Muslim occupation, Templar Knights and a pope who lived there, el Papa Luna (the Moon Pope) or Pope Luna. He had some amazing views, not gonna lie. The ticket is only 5 euros.
Visit the Seashell House (La Casa de las Conchas)
The House of Shells is such a unique thing to see, a house entirely decorated with seashells! It is an instagrammable spot for sure and so pretty! It also has a an intersting story, as the owners were the main founders of the tourism in Peniscola. They firstly began giving tours in exchange for money and in time , they managed to build this 3 story house. They were giving sailors tobacco in exchange to the most beautiful shells they could find. That’s how the house was completed in 1961. It was a complete coincidence that I also wore shells that day, as I only found out about this house on the way there!
Visit the Artillery Park (El Parque de Artillería)
With the same ticket from the Peniscola Castle, you can visit the Artillery Park. It is a stunning park, with views to the sea. The park has many palm trees and very instagrammable!
Check out El “Bufador”
That is a really cool spot where you can hear the sea. It’s a cavity at the end of a street where you can really enjoy your time when the sea is aggitated. In summer it hasn’t displayed a great show for us, as you can imagine. But it was still nice checking it out.
Walk around and admire the buildings
Peniscola has such dreamy houses, painted in white with blue touches or balconies, it reminisces a lot of Greece villages. Absolutely stunning.
Go shopping
Along with the beautiful houses, there are plently of cute shops with bags, clothes, jewelry and souvenirs. Most of them are very aesthetically pleasing!
Get a sweet treat
Make the most of this one day in Peniscola and treat yourself with something sweet! There are plently of ice cream shops and smoothie and slushy places.
Hit the beach
When we arrived in Peniscola we couldn’t help but be mesmerized at the lenght of North Beach! It was also packed with people enjoying the sun, doing watersports and just relaxing. Peniscola has 2 beaches, the North and the South one. The North beach is 5 kms long and seems to be the preferred beach and the South one that is smaller having only 300 meters. The water is also turquoise, stunning!
Find a quiet spot to listen to the sea and admire the views
There are plenty of great spots to enjoy the nice views or to listen to the sea crashing into the cliffs. Just take a moment to enjoy it all!
How can you get to Peniscola?
Spending one day in Peniscola is a great idea, either from Valencia or Barcelona. We did the trip from Valencia, as we live there so I will explain how we did that. But Peniscola is accessible from both Valencia and Barcelona by train and of course, car, which is more convenient and I will let you know why. From Valencia, with the train, there are multiple options, either Regional Trains or Intercity ones. The price depends on the type of train and ranges between 9 and 30ish euros.
Peniscola has a shared train station with Benicarlo. From there, you can either get a taxi or the bus. I didn’t see a lot of taxis by the train station so you might have to do some research in advance for that. As for the bus, there are two options, L1B1 line or L1A1 line. LI1B1 starts from the train station and L1A1 has a station a bit further (10-15 minutes walking), but the location of the station is not correct on Google maps! Just look for the little shelter and bus station sign. We got some help finding it from a nice person that saw us confused, haha. The bus ride is around 45 minutes, more or less.
So given all that, I believe renting a card would make the trip more smooth, but public transportation is also doable, it just takes a bit more patience.
If you want to check out more ideas about day trips from Valencia, you can check out this article I wrote: 10 easy and stunning day trips from Valencia, Spain
Let me know your thoughts!