Peñíscola itself actually reminds me of my (ill-spent?) youth in North Myrtle Beach, where, during those years, the sidewalks were rolled up for the winter and glitzy discos limped through the winter months only keeping the lights on by accepting fake ids - meticulously crafted in local high school libraries, or so I've been told by someone close to the design and manufacture of said ids.
(Maybe the lack of apartment heat also reminds me of the oceanfront hovel I rented in the years after college, when I was more concerned with my tan than a 401K.)
As I learned my way around the town I was greeted by block after block of shops and restaurants closed not because of COVID, but because there are no tourists during the winter. My lifelong-resident wifi installer Tony told me that while the winter population is 10,000 - 12,000, in the high season Peñíscola swells to 100,000 each week.
During the winter Valencia took a militant stance against COVID, locking down before Christmas. Allowing only take out from restaurants and no visitors from beyond the Valencia borders without travel papers. These measures apparently worked based on this recent municiple posting on Instagram (below). Restaurants were finally allowed to serve outside in early March. No inside seating was allowed.
The city of Peniscola set up roadblocks and actively crashed illegal sorta-spreader parties held by teenagers bored out of their minds, reporting everything in local Facebook groups.
(In my trip from Madrid I was armed with travel papers from my school and my new 12-month lease.)
And so I've felt really safe here, though I did finally start having cabin fever in April. Netflix and PrimeVideo can only maintain the sanity for so long.