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Grao de Castellon

The Grao of Castellón is a maritime district within the city of Castellón de la Plana (Spain), 4 Km away from the centre of the city, with a history and festival that distinguish it from the province capital (Castellón). It is located south to Benicásim and north to Almazora.

Original name
The maritime district of Castellón de la Plana admits a bilingual name: El Grau de Castelló in valencian El Grao de Castellón in spanish The name of its residents is Graueros.

Entrances
Nowadays, el Grao has dual carriageway CS-22 which communicates the N-340 with the Port of Castellón. There are also two intercity roads that join the capital of La Plana with the coast: Avenida del Mar and Avenida Hermanos Bou. It is linked to the urban centre with the line 1 of the TRAM. It has 2 shuttle buses which connect its station with the one in the pinar’s beach and the one in the camino Serradal. It is planned that a second tram will be built to be connected with Benicàssim.

The origins
The appearance of Iberian and Roman beside the coast confirms the theory that states that the coast of El Grao de Castellón has more than two thousand years of port trade tradition. As well, during the centuries of Muslim invasion there must have been business there. The king James I ordered to build the Camino Viejo del Mar just after conquering La Plana to join Castellón with the coastal zone of El Grao. This road ends where these discoveries have been found, this situation is interpreted as that there was a consolidated commercial zone before the conquest. The commercial activity rose since then, as various documents and remains show. The first known fisherman appeared on 1398 and established its residence in Santo Tomás church, located in calle Escultor Viciano of Castellón, while the first Grao’s census as an independent neighbourhood is set on 1865 with 428 residents.

El Pujol de Gasset
The Grao was originally constituted by a series of ponds that closes its exit to the Mediterranean El Serradal, a sandbar that forms an elevation between the sea and the marshy zone, that doesn’t allow an adequate drainage, forming a wide zone of a marshy landscape. Since the nineteenth century, the man has tried to dry the wetlands in order to convert the land into a cultivated area,currently being, practically, all the coastal strip, solid ground and used not only for cultivation but also as a residential area. In the middle of this marshy areat there are rosed a series of elevations known as pujols. One of them, named after Pujol de Gasset, was between the pond of Patos and the one of Sotanilla, next to the current highway of the Grao to Castellón, today an urbanized zone between the C.P. L'Illa and la avenida de los Hermanos Bou. These higher areas already in the nineteenth century were flattened to fill the almarjales and to eliminate the stagnant waters, and it was just in 1851 - when Pujol de Gasset was in this process - when it was located in him what were the remains of a settlement of the Iberian period, apparently and according to the scarce data that we have, can belong to a late moment of this culture of the mediterranean antiquity, concretely to the century II B. C. Once the site was identified and known above all because of the discovery of an Iberian inscription, the Royal Academy of History tried to preserve the burial mound in question, as well as others that were in the area. Evidently, the conservation was not carried out and the burial mound was gradually undone. In 1905, land as well as ceramic materials are still being removed. In 1928, 1943 and 1949, archaeological excavations were carried out, the results of which aren't known, but confirmed the existence and perdurability of the archaeological, despite of having dissolved that burial bound, from the archaeological site. In 2001 the area is still object of an excavation with exploration to know the potentiality of the site, where is located the Iberian and black italic varnish pottery, which was already known, and besides Phoenician pottery, from Bronze Age and Islamic pottery, which indicate that this place was a human settlement over the years. Nowadays, as it is said, it is still occupied by el Grao, and waiting for an appropriate archaeological project to be done before the site will be completely disappeared. The epigraph found in the Pujol de Gasset is a sheet of lead of 44.50 centimetres in length and 4.00 centimetres in width. It presents four lines of writing, the last one shorter, which do not take up all the length of the bracket. It is only written on one side. In one end there are two isolated graphics. It presents twenty-two words separated by three vertical points. The words provide a duplicity of signs, that is a graphic may have a pair of versions in which the characteristic is modified by addition or elimination. This variants want to show the representation of the occlusive sounds. Writing belongs to the dual variant of Iberian northeastern or Levantine, being one of the longest texts written in the Iberian language. See external links to the studies.

La Torre del Pinar

La Torre del Pinaret was like the Torre de San Vicente from Benicassim, which is still in good state of preservation, according to the deduction of a report about the fortress of the Valencian coast, carried by a group of engineers from Valencia in 1870. That report shows that the fortress from Benicassim is a square plant, 12 metres sideways and 15 metres of high, meanwhile the one from el Grao was square too, despite the fact that its measurements were a bit smaller: 10 metres sideways and 14 metres of high. Both fortress also have two fortified towers in their top part, which can be still seen in the one from San Vicent. The biggest difference between both of them was that the tower of Benicasim had some stables that weren’t typical building from el grao. However, these stables have now disappeared, so the current image of the tower of Benicasim is even more similar to the one that was presented by the Torre del Pinaret The fortress of el grao, which was built in 1562 as part of the fortification of Valencia Kingdom, was originally built in 1571, was designed by Juan Bautista Antonelli, and it cost 2875 pounds, 5 coins and 4 cents. Its purpose was to defend the coast from the pirates. It was destroyed in 1618 and rebuilt again in 1626, but after being demolished again it was finally rebuilt in other place in 1671, it was reformed later in 1673. It disappeared in the late nineteenth century. The report in 1870 may be considered as the death certificate of the fortification of el grao when concluding that "it can be said that the use of this tower as a watchman or as a defense is of very little importance and that its conservation would not be proper". This report also adds 120 escudos to the cost of the reparations that the tower needed, which were never done. Currently, some of the masonry stones that have appeared in the place where the Torre del Pinaret (XVII century) used to be stood are being studied. The remains could be from the foundations of the fortress mentioned before, and they have appeared in a plot behind the Hotel Turcosa where constructions are being carried out. In this area was formerly the so called Pujol de la Torre, which is an elevation of the land on which the fortress stood. The findings of these remains have temporarily stopped construction on the place where the remains were found in May 2006.

Recent story
Here we can discover more about the history of the harbour of el Grao:

Places of turistic interest

 * El pinar
 * The planetarium
 * Plaza del Mar, in the Port of Castellón
 * The cinema complex, in the Port of Castellón
 * The beach
 * Golf Club Costa de Azahar
 * Real Club Náutico of Castellón, in the Port of Castellón
 * Castellón Airfield

Festival
Main article: Fiestas del Grao de Castellón
 * February: Carnival.
 * June: Festival of San Pedro, the patron saint of the people there.(29th June)
 * June: Encounter of Bestias de Fuego.
 * July: Festival of the Virgin of Carmen (16th July)
 * September: Harley-Davidson gathering.

Sports

 * Club Voleibol Mediterráneo of Castellón], plays its games on the Pablo Herrera sports centre, to encourage the reserve of young players.
 * Club de Actividades Subacuáticas Escorpa, on the Port.
 * Pigeon-breeding Club Santa Teresa.
 * Football Club San Pedro, which plays its games in the Javier Marquina field, next to the beach.
 * Football Club CD Unión de Castellón, founded on 2005 and awarded at a national level for its good sports management.
 * Gymnastics Club Tramontana, on the Emilio Fabregat sports centre.
 * Golf Club Costa de Azahar, on el Pinar.
 * Disabled Club Físicos Maset de Frater
 * Shooting Club San Huberto, on the Airfield.
 * Volleyball Club L'Illa Grau, which counts with teams of male and female categories (on the 2005/2006 season, its male team participated in the Superliga, and the female one in the FEV). It plays its matches in the Pablo Herrera sports centre, next to the Port.
 * Cultural deportiva, the cultural society of Castellón is the second oldest club in the province, since 1932 and with sections of fishing, football and swimming.
 * Real Club Nautical of Castellón, at the port.
 * Centre of skydiving Skytime, at the airfield.
 * Grau Sports Basketball Club, plays its matches in Castellón.

Places of interest

 * Multiplex cinema Neocine;
 * Airfield;
 * Port of Castellón
 * Great Casino of Castellón.

Groups and Associations

 * Associations and groups
 * Cultural Association: La Barraca.
 * Ibero-American Association Simon Bolivar, founded in Grao, and formed by Iberoamerican artists and photographers.
 * Neighborhood Association: Classroom debate women of El Grao.
 * Neighborhood Association: El Faro.
 * Neighborhood Association: Filà Mora d'en Trilles.
 * Association: Musical Union of El Grao.
 * Association: Christian Fraternity of the sick and handicapped (FRATER). Avenida de los Pinos, 242.
 * Retirement and Pensioners Center La Panderola, in the plaza of the same name.
 * Brotherhood of la Virgen de los Dolores, founded in 1957 and with headquarters in the Parish of San Pedro Apóstol.
 * Parish of San Pedro Apóstol (Grao of Castellón)
 * Colla of Dimonis: Botafocs.
 * Polyphonic Choir Sant Pere.
 * Collectives for the Culture to El Grao.
 * Theater Group Teatre of l'home dibuixat.
 * Scout Grouping Sant Pere.
 * Junior Movement de A.C.
 * Splai Castelló.
 * Association of neighbours Camí Fondo de Castellón. Marjal of Castelló-Marjaleria.

Distinguished “graueros”

 * Carlos Latre, multifaceted artist from el grao, even though emigrated to Tarragona.
 * Pablo Herrera Allepuz, from El Grao, player at C.V.L'Illa Grau and silver medal in Olympic Games Athens 2004. Nominate Rey de la Playa by the European Volleyball Confederation in 2004.
 * Marina Albiol, politician. Spokesperson of La Izquierda Plural in the European Parliament since 2014.

Studies

 * Plan Experimental de pesca de arrastre de Castellón 1961/66 Study funded by the project called COPEMED from FAO to the Coordinación Pesquera en el Mediterráneo Occidental y Central.
 * El Grau de Castelló: Una fachada marítima urbana desconexa, by Vicent Ortells Chabrera and Antonio Querol Gómez.
 * El Plomo Ibérico del Pujol de Gasset, from Museum of Fine Arts of Castellón.

Articles

 * A propòsit de les Torres del Grau de Castelló, by Ferran Olucha Montins (director of the Museum from Castelló), in Revista Penyagolosa, II época, núm. 22. Ed. Diputación de Castellón.
 * El plomo de Castellón: el primer documento epigráfico ibérico hallado en la península, by Jorge Maier.
 * El habla de los graueros: peculiaridades del castellano de los jóvenes del distrito portuario de Castellón, by Anja Käuper and Carlos J. Guerrero Ramos, in El castellano en las tierras de habla catalana, de Carsten Sinner y Andreas Wesch (eds.), Madrid: Iberoamericana (2008). ISBN 978-84-8489-348-6.

Presentations

 * Immigration in the fishing harbour of el Grao de Castellón, Manuel Llorca and Jorge Tegedor, for the Mayor's Office of el Grao de Castellón.

Books

 * The fishing activity in el Grau de Castelló, by Rafael Viruela Martínez, ed. University of Valencia, Geography section (1985). ISBN 84-600-4002-X.
 * Social integration project of immigrant fishermen in the maritime district of el Grao de Castellón, by Jorge Tegedor del Valle and Manuel Llorca Sellés; Ed. Mayor's Office of el Grao (1999).
 * El Grao, my Grao, by Sergio Ferrer de Almenara (2001). ISBN 84-88664-94-X.
 * Fishing in el Grao de Castellón, by J. Basilio Trilles Torrent, ed. BP Oil Spain (1997-2002)
 * That Grao ..., by Sergio Ferrer de Almenara; Ed. Caja Rural Castellón, Fundación San Isidro (2002). Legal Department: CS 193-2002.
 * Memories of el Grao de Castellón, by Miguel Senent Lluart; Ed. Publications Service of the Diputación de Castellón (2003). ISBN 84-89944-90-3.
 * Since when in el Grao ?, by Sergio Ferrer de Almenara, ed. Town hall of Castellón (2005). ISBN 84-95915-65-0.
 * El Grao Siglo XX, de Sergio Ferrer de Almenara; ed. ACEN (2011).
 * "Qui era qui al Grau del segle XX. Els malnoms del Grau de Castelló", by Sergio Ferrer de Almenara, ed. Publicacions of the Cultural Association La Barraca (2014).

Tales

 * The harbour’s history, by PortCastello.

[[Categoría: El Grao]