The road from Murcia to Valencia

We drove from Murcia to Valencia, where we should leave our rental car at the airport. It took about 2 hours, much faster then the coastal road, that was our original plans, would have taken. We saw a lot of beautiful mountains and beautiful castles from the highway, but not much water since it is going inland. The largest cities we passed were Elda (pop. 53 000), Novelda (26 000), Petrer (35 000) and Villena (35 000). We took a highspeed train back to Alicante from Valencia to catch a plane at Alicante-Elche Airport. By train we passed Xàtiva (pop. 29 000), Villena, Novelda and Elda among others.