Thursday's stage sees the riders set off from
Vila-Real, a royal city as its name implies, founded in 1264 by King James I of Aragon (Jaime el Conquistador). The arms are of course those of Aragon, but on the lozenge that was commonly used in Aragon to distinguish that the arms were those of a city, not a person.
This
Vila-Real must not be confused with any of the other communities of the same name in Spain, nor with that in Portugal, whose arms are:
(Aléu apparently mean eagle.)
The finishing line is at
Sagunto (Sagunt in Catalan), whose arms, adopted as recently as 1998, are those of Vila-Real but with a variety of additions encircling the lozenge. How heraldic these are, or simply add-ons agreed by the town council I cannot say. The
M and
L clearly have some significance, but I cannot (yet) discover what.
Spanish blazon: Escut caironat. D'or, quatre pals de gules. Fora de l'escut a l'extrem, sobre els dos costats superiors de l'escut, cinc estrelles d'argent de sis puntes. A destra i sinistra dels costats inferiors, una M i una L d'or respectivament. Davall de l'escut, una flor de lis d'atzur. Per timbre, una corona reial oberta.
The city was originally named Arse (really!) by the Phoenicians, Saguntum by the Romans and Morvedre by the Moors. It has been besieged by, among others, Hannibal and El Cid. It was the birth place of the composer Joaquin Rodrigo (Concierto do Aranjuez).