Porcuna

A Town That Once Minted Its Own Money

The A-4 motorway between Jaén and Córdoba slices through olive country so relentlessly that Porcuna's exit sign appears almost apologetic. One kilometre later, the road narrows and the 21st century peels away. Stone houses the colour of digestive biscuits line streets laid out by Romans, Visigoths and Moors in succession. At 427 metres above sea level, the air carries a faint scent of wild thyme and engine oil from the nearby cooperatives where today's olive harvests become tomorrow's supermarket extra virgins.

This is no tourist confection. Porcuna's 5,000 residents live surrounded by 1.4 million olive trees—a ratio that makes the human population feel almost incidental. The town's most dramatic boast is older than Spain itself: as Obulco, it minted silver coins stamped with a charging bull, pieces of which turn up in local ploughland to this day. Walk into the tiny Museo Obulco on Plaza de España and you can handle one, its edges worn smooth by 2,200 years of Andalusian soil.

Climbing Towers and Counting Olives

The Torre de Boabdil rewards those who don't mind calf-burning cobbles. Fourteen metres of crimson brickwork remain from what was once a Nasrid border fortress; the last Nasrid king reputedly sheltered here during his 1492 march into exile. The climb is worth the sweat: from the roof the Campiña de Jaén spreads out like green corduroy, furrows of olive trees rippling towards every horizon. British visitors tend to photograph the view in panoramic mode, then spend ten minutes trying to spot another building. They rarely succeed.

Back at street level, Porcuna's medieval core reveals itself house by house. The Iglesia de la Asunción squats opposite the tower, its late-Gothic portal decorated with carved pineapples—symbols of hospitality that once directed pilgrims towards free lodging. Inside, 17th-century choir stalls still bear the graffiti of bored seminarians: initials, dates, even a crude football pitch scratched into the wood. The baroque altarpiece glitters with Andalusian excess, but look left and you'll find a Roman altar stone repurposed as a pedestal, its Latin inscription half-erased by centuries of polishing boots.

Oil, Bread and the Midday Menu

Porcuna runs on olive oil the way other towns run on electricity. Breakfast at Cafetería California begins with a saucer of local oil for dunking toasted baguette; the waitress brings it unasked, assuming—correctly—that no foreigner would choose margarine given the alternative. At Restaurante El Triunfo on Calle Carrera, the fixed-price lunch (€12, weekdays only) starts with gazpacho thickened by breadcrumbs and ends with cordero a la miel, lamb shoulder glazed with honey from beehives tucked between the groves. Vegetarians survive on grilled pimientos de padrón and the reliable tortilla; vegans should probably pack sandwiches.

The Wednesday morning street market is utilitarian rather than photogenic. Stallholders from Jaén province sell cheap socks, Chinese kitchenware and plastic toys, but look for the women from the nearby village of Huelma who bring wicker baskets of wild asparagus and pennyroyal mint. Buy a bundle, add boiling water back at the Airbnb, and you have a digestive tea that tastes like liquid After Eight.

When the Town Lets Its Hair Down

Porcuna's calendar revolves around agricultural rhythm, not tourism. The Feria de Septiembre arrives when the first olives start to swell, filling the fairground on the southern edge of town with sherry booths and Sevillana dancing. Accommodation doubles in price and halves in availability; light sleepers should book in Lopera ten minutes down the A-4 where the music stops at midnight rather than four in the morning. Easter week is quieter but equally intense: processions squeeze through lanes barely three metres wide, brass bands rebounding off stone walls until the whole place vibrates.

Spring brings the Fiesta de los Huertos, when residents unlock garden gates normally hidden behind iron-studded doors. One year you might find a retired carpenter who has turned his patio into an aviary for goldfinches; the next, an English teacher who grows dahlias the size of dinner plates and hands out cuttings in yoghurt pots. Entry is free, donations go to the local hospice, and conversation drifts between Spanish and broad Andaluz dialect fast enough to defeat GCSE fluency.

Getting Here, Getting Lost, Getting Home

Porcuna is not on the way to anywhere famous, which explains both its authenticity and the rental-car requirement. Málaga airport delivers you to the A-45 in under an hour; after that it's 90 kilometres of olive monoculture broken only by the occasional roadside garage selling jerrycans of oil cheaper than water. Parking on Plaza de Andalucía is free and unlimited—look for the dusty Citroën belonging to the municipal policeman; if there's space beside it, you're golden.

Public transport exists in theory. A twice-daily bus reaches Jaén at 07:15 and 14:00; the return journey leaves Jaén after siesta, arriving too late for dinner but in time for a nightcap at Bar Manolo where the clientele will ask why you came and mean it kindly. Taxis from the nearest AVE station at Córdoba cost €80—more than a day's car hire—so unless carbon footprint trumps convenience, drive.

Leave time for wrong turns. The ring road built in the 1990s still confuses sat-navs; following the signs for "Porcuna Centro" can deposit you in an industrial estate where pallets of olives await pressing. Turn around, roll down the window and inhale: the smell of crushed fruit is the town's unofficial welcome mat, and it lingers on clothes long after you've pointed the car back towards the coast.