Abla

The church bell strikes eleven and nobody stirs. Not the two elderly men sharing the bench outside the ayuntamiento, not the woman hanging sheets from her wrought-iron balcony, and certainly not the dog asleep in the middle of the road. Abla's only through-traffic is the occasional tractor heading to the tomato plots in the river plain below. At 861 metres, the air is thin enough to make the Sierra Nevada peaks feel close enough to touch, yet thick with the scent of wild thyme and wood smoke.

This is rural Andalucía without the tour-bus varnish. The village climbs a south-facing slope above the Nacimiento valley, its white houses stacked like sugar cubes someone forgot to straighten. Narrow lanes twist past green doors, faded ceramic nameplates and the odd grandfather clock left outside for repair – a domestic intimacy you rarely find in better-known hill-towns. There are no souvenir shops, no flamenco bars with English menus, no ticket booths. The nearest cash machine is fifteen kilometres away in Guadix; locals still settle the bill at Posa Tío Peroles with a fistful of coins and a joke about the weather.

What Abla does have is space to breathe. From the mirador beside the 16th-century Iglesia de San Sebastián the view stretches south over a patchwork of irrigated fields – bright green against the dusty brown badlands of Almería – then vaults abruptly upwards to the snow-streaked ridge of the Sierra Nevada. On winter mornings the peaks glow rose-gold while the village remains in blue shadow; by midsummer the contrast reverses, the mountains providing a cool silhouette against a brassy sky. Either way, the panorama is free and you rarely share it with more than a handful of walkers tightening their boots for the PR-A 354 circuit.

That 11-kilometre loop is Abla's single sign-posted hike, but it punches above its weight. The trail climbs through almond terraces to an abandoned farmhouse where swallows nest in the rafters, then threads along a ridge of umbrella pines before dropping into the Barranco de la Sangre, a red-walled gorge that stays deliciously cool even in July. Allow three hours, carry more water than looks reasonable, and expect goat bells rather than people. Mountain-bikers use the same paths: if you meet one, etiquette is to step uphill – the ground is soft gravel and the drop is unforgiving.

Back in the village, lunch options are limited to two bars and a weekend-only restaurant, but prices feel mis-printed. A plate of arroz con conejo – saffron rice with tender rabbit, easily big enough for two – costs €7 at Bar la Plaza. Tapas still come free with a €1.50 caña of beer: choose pipirrana (diced tomato, pepper and tuna) or gachas, a smoky paprika porridge that tastes like savoury Ready-Brek and keeps shepherds going since Moorish times. Finish with borrachillos, sweet brioche buns soaked in anise and sugar; they travel well if you stock up for the onward drive.

That drive is part of the deal. Abla sits just off the A-92, the motorway that shuttles Granada to Almería, yet the exit is easy to miss. Coming from the coast you climb through olive plantations that gradually give way to pine; from Granada the road corkscrews over the Puerto de la Mora, high enough for your ears to pop. Either way, leave the motorway and the twenty-first century loosens its grip. Phone signal falters on the upper streets; Whatsatchat will have to wait until you descend to the petrol station on the main road – the only place open on a Sunday afternoon.

The village makes no pretence at being a destination. Saturday evening sees a slow-motion migration: locals stroll to the church square, greet the priest, compare vegetable harvests and debate rainfall percentages with the seriousness others reserve for football. Tourists who arrive expecting staged folklore leave disappointed; visitors happy to sit with a coffee and listen to Spanish spoken at half speed discover something rarer. One British couple, overheard in the bakery, had detoured on their way back from the Alhambra. "We paid €40 for the room, €12 for dinner, and the owner drew us a map of where his grandfather hid during the Civil War. Try getting that in Granada for under a hundred," the man said, clutching a still-warm baguette like contraband.

History here is lived-in rather than labelled. Fragments of the old Moorish wall survive behind someone's garage; the town's name derives from "Tabla", meaning "the mount", though nobody bothers with a plaque. Inside the church an 18th-century retablo glints with gold leaf recently restored by subscription – the list of donors, handwritten on A4 paper, is taped to the door. Even the fiestas feel communal rather than commercial. On 20 January San Sebastián is carried through lamp-lit streets accompanied by a brass band whose trumpets sound endearingly off-key; in mid-August the summer fair imports a single bumper-car ride and sets it up in the football pitch. Fireworks explode at 3 a.m.; if you're renting the house opposite the plaza, join the party or bring ear-plugs.

Walkers should target April-May, when the surrounding barrancos flush green after winter rain and the air smells of orange blossom. October gives clear skies and almond trees turning gold without the fierce heat that turns summer hikes into endurance tests. Winter brings occasional snow-dust on the rooftops but rarely blocks the A-92; nonetheless, carry tyre chains if you're staying in a hill-top cortijo. Accommodation is thin: two village houses converted into basic guest rooms, one rural hotel five kilometres out, and a scattering of self-catering cottages booked through the town hall website. None has a pool; the public lido on the edge of the plain opens only when school finishes, and even then the water temperature demands Andalucian stoicism.

The nearest alternative beds are in Gérgal's 18th-century castle-parador (doubles from €95, advance booking essential) or back down the motorway in the cave hotels of Guadix – fascinating, but you lose the night-time silence that makes Abla special. Budget travellers often pair the village with a morning in the Alhambra, 75 minutes by car, and an afternoon on the beaches of the Cabo de Gata, roughly the same distance south. The logistics work: leave Granada at eight, park by ten, tour the Nasrid palaces, reach Abla for late lunch, walk the gorge at sunset, sleep cheap, and hit the coast next morning before the sunbathers claim the sand.

Yet Abla rewards those who stay longer. Sit on the church steps at dusk and watch swifts stitch the sky; follow the lane past the last house until it dissolves into a dirt track scented with pine; listen to the irrigation channel gurgling under metal sluice gates older than any living resident. You may leave with nothing more tangible than a few photos and the memory of a three-course meal that cost less than a London sandwich, but the village's quiet insistence that life can still move slowly will follow you home. Just remember to fill the petrol tank before Saturday noon – and maybe download that offline map while you've still got signal.