Benizalón

The almond blossom usually arrives between Valentine’s Day and the first week of March. For a fortnight the slopes below Benizalon glow white and the village smells like warm marzipan. After that the petals drop, the terraces return to their normal shade of pale grey, and 254 people get on with the year. If you blink you miss the show; if you arrive on a Monday you will also miss lunch – the bakery, the bar and the grocer all slam their shutters at 14:00 and refuse to reopen until Tuesday.

Benizalon perches at 936 m on the southern lip of the Sierra de los Filabres, 48 minutes’ drive north-east of Almería city. The last 11 km are single-carriageway mountain road: first olive groves, then the hamlet of Fuente del Pino, then a ridge that feels higher than it looks. Phone reception dies halfway up, the thermometer drops six degrees, and the Mediterranean appears as a thin silver thread on the horizon. Park on the rough square beside the church; everything else is on foot, and uphill.

A village that keeps its gate locked

The parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación is modest – stone, whitewash, a single nave, bells that still mark the quarters. Inside, the air smells of candle wax and the stone floors are worn smooth by generations of farmers in studded boots. There is no ticket desk, no audio guide, and no postcards. The building is simply the village clock and social anchor; when the priest rings three times the older residents emerge, shuffle across the plaza and disappear inside.

From the church door Calle San Roque climbs even higher, cobbles polished to a skid-risk by winter rain. After two minutes the street becomes a path, the path becomes a track, and the track ends at the Ermita de Monteagud, a fifteenth-century sanctuary wedged against the rock. The gatekeeper, Juan, cycles up each morning to unlock; if the wind is cold or his grandson has a football match he turns round early. Ring him the evening before – the number is scribbled on the bakery wall – or you may walk 40 minutes for a locked door. The reward, when it is open, is a 270-degree sweep that takes in the snow-streaked Sierra Nevada, the Tabernas desert and, on very clear days, the hazy outline of the Moroccan Rif.

Walking tracks that expect you to know the way

The Filabres are criss-crossed by old mule trails, many still used by goat herders who move animals between winter and summer pastures. From the village square an unmarked but obvious path strikes west along a stone terrace; after 3 km it drops into the Rambla de Benizalon, a dry riverbed of white boulders and tamarisk. The round trip takes two hours, needs no technical skill, and offers shade only at the halfway point – carry water even in April. For something steeper, follow the concrete water tank east of the cemetery; the track becomes a loose rock staircase that gains 400 m in 2 km and emerges on a fire-road used by forestry trucks. Turn left for the ruined lookout post of Cerro de la Mina, a concrete cube built during the Civil War and now colonised by blue rock thrushes.

Maps.me works offline, but the pistes change after every storm. Ask at the bar for the latest blockage: if a pine has fallen across the track you may add an hour’s detour through scratchy gorse. Mountain-bikers are welcome, though the surface is fist-sized shale and the gradients punish anyone who forgot to train. In July the temperature can still touch 35 °C at midday; start early or risk a bonk with no café to rescue you.

Food that tastes of firewood and winter

The only public eating place is Bar Venta Elena, a whitewashed cube on the main road with a hand-painted sign and a TV that flickers in the corner. Coffee comes in glass tumblers, the menu is written on a scrap of cardboard, and the owner, Mari-Carmen, stops serving when the stew runs out. Order choto al ajillo – kid goat slow-cooked with bay leaves and a fistful of garlic – and she will disappear into the back yard, return with meat that was bleating that morning, and charge €9 for a plate big enough to share. Sundays see a rush of extended families from Olula de Castro; arrive before 14:00 or the kid is gone.

If the bar is closed, self-cater. The village shop opens 09:30-14:00, stocks tinned tomatoes, local almonds, vacuum-packed morcilla that tastes startlingly like a Stornoway black pudding, and crusty pan de pueblo baked 5 km down the road. Take it to the plaza, add a bottle of Almerían tempranillo bought earlier in Tabernas, and you have a picnic that costs less than a Costa coffee. evenings cool fast: even in August you will want a jumper once the sun drops behind the ridge.

When to come, and when to stay away

Spring is the easy answer. Between mid-February and late April the days hover around 18 °C, the almond blossom lingers, and the smell of wet thyme drifts up from the terraces. Easter is quiet – one short procession on Good Friday, candles glinting off whitewash, no brass bands or tourist tat. Autumn runs a close second: October brings 24 °C afternoons, clear skies for star-gazing, and the start of the almond harvest. You will see villagers beating trees with long canes and raking nuts into hessian sacks; ask politely and they will let you help for ten minutes, then insist you take a handful of raw kernels home.

Summer is doable but demanding. The village sits above the coastal cauldron, so nights drop to 20 °C instead of 28 °C, yet the sun still burns. Hike before 11:00 or after 17:00; the bar reopens at 20:00 for cold beers and plates of jamón sliced to order. Winter is crisp, often bright, occasionally snow-dusted. The access road is gritted, but the final hairpin can ice over; carry snow chains if a cold front is forecast. January and February are blissfully silent – the sort of silence that makes Londoners realise their ears still work – but services shrink further: the bakery opens only on Wednesday and Saturday, the bar may close two days a week.

Leaving without a fridge magnet

There is no souvenir shop, no artisanal olive-oil boutique, no fridge magnet shaped like Andalucía. What you can take away is cheaper and lighter: a jar of orange-blossom honey from the grocer, a packet of sweet almonds roasted with rosemary, and the memory of a night sky so dark that the Milky Way casts a shadow. Start the engine just after dawn, drop down through the switchbacks, and the Mediterranean reappears like a blue wall. Ten minutes later phone signal returns, the first billboard for a beach bar flashes past, and the sierra is reduced to a pale ridge in the rear-view mirror. Back in Almería airport you can buy an overpriced cortado and wait for the easyJet queue, already wondering whether Juan remembered to lock the sanctuary gate.