Las Tres Villas

The almond trees were in bloom when the lorry appeared. A white curtain of petals drifted across the AL-5405 as the driver of an Astra estate slammed into reverse, backing 200 metres to the nearest passing bay while the truck inched forward with the patience of someone who has done this manoeuvre every harvest since 1993. Welcome to Las Tres Villas, where even the sat-nav gives up and the scenery still runs on agricultural time.

At 688 metres above sea level, the collective municipality – Alcudia de Monteagud, Benitagla and Benizalón – sits on the roof of the Filabres-Tabernas range, half an hour’s drive north of Tabernas’s cinema studios and an hour from the nearest Costa beach umbrella. The altitude knocks the edge off summer: July afternoons top 35 °C, yet after dark you’ll reach for a fleece. In January the thermometer can dip below zero; snow is rare but not unheard of, and the single-track access road suddenly feels Alpine.

White walls, iron grilles and a church that survived earthquakes

Alcudia de Monteagud, the northernmost hamlet, strings its houses along a ridge like a broken necklace. The parish church, a modest Mudéjar rebuild finished in lime wash, lost its tower in the 1805 tremor and never bothered to replace the bells with anything grander than a loudspeaker. Behind the church the lanes narrow until you can touch both walls; residents park by leaving the handbrake off and letting the Fiat roll backwards into a doorway.

Two kilometres south, Benitagla clings to a slope so steep that the school playground is terraced. Arabs laid out the street pattern in the 12th century and nobody saw reason to change it: alleys twist into shadow, then open onto pocket-sized plazas where old men play dominoes at 11 a.m. sharp. The bar on the corner sells Estrella at €1.40 a caña and will make you a sandwich if they like the look of you – if not, they’ll shrug and point to the next village.

Benizalón, the largest of the trio (population 340), spreads across a small plateau. Houses here have interior patios hidden behind iron grilles; the light bounces off whitewash hard enough to hurt. Walk ten minutes past the last street lamp and you’re on a dirt track between almond terraces. Early March turns the whole hillside pink and white; by late April the blossoms are mulching underfoot and the first green almonds appear in the village shop, sold by weight from a plastic washing-up bowl.

Footpaths that expect you to know where you’re going

There is no ticket office, no interpretation centre and only the occasional waymark nailed to a stump. The council has, however, printed a free PDF map that shows how the three villages link up via old mule tracks and service roads. The shortest hop – Benitagla to Benizalón – is 2.5 km and takes 35 minutes, dropping into a shallow ravine then climbing past an abandoned threshing floor where swallows nest in the rafters.

Longer circuits push east into the Rambla de Benizalón, a dry riverbed flanked by reed beds and espino scrub. After rain the rambla runs knee-deep; most of the year it’s a stony avenue where the only sound is your boots and the occasional clink of a goat bell. Carry water: there are no fountains once you leave the houses, and summer shade is theoretical.

Mountain-bikers arrive with gravel bikes and emergency litres strapped to the frame. The gradients are honest – 8 % climbs that go on for three kilometres – and the surface varies from packed clay to fist-sized shale. A circular route south to Escúllar and back is 28 km with 600 m of ascent; phone signal dies after the first ridge, so download the track before you set off.

What turns up on the table

The agricultural co-op in Benizalón sells oil labelled suave – peppery but not the throat-catching stuff you find in Jaén. Locals use it to fry migas, yesterday’s bread reborn as crisp crumbs with garlic and slivers of pancetta. Ajo colorao, a brick-red soup of potatoes and sweet paprika, appears on Thursday lunch menus; ask them to hold the chorizo and it becomes vegetarian by accident rather than design.

Sweet things depend on the calendar. In January you’ll find torticas de avío, thin discs of pastry topped with pumpkin jam and sesame. During the August fiestas the women of Alcudia bake roscos flavoured with aniseed and aguardiente; they taste like alcoholic bagels and are habitually dunked in coffee so strong the spoon stands up. There is no restaurant as such, only two village bars and a bakery that opens when the owner wakes up. Stock up in Albox’s Mercadona beforehand if you want anything resembling kale.

When the villages throw a party

Each hamlet keeps its own patron-saint day, staggered through the second fortnight of August so that neighbours can attend all three. The format is identical: 9 p.m. mass, 11 p.m. procession with a brass trio, midnight fireworks let off from a tractor trailer, then a disco in the plaza until someone pulls the plug at 4 a.m. Visitors are welcome but not announced; buy a raffle ticket (€2) because first prize is a ham and runner-up is a legs-of-lamb voucher acceptable at the local butcher.

Semana Santa is quieter. On Good Friday the three parishes pool resources for one small procession: twenty men in purple robes carry a single float depicting the Virgen de los Dolores along Benizalón’s main street. The only music is a drum and a lone trumpet; the whole thing is over in 45 minutes, after which everyone goes home to eat cod fritters.

Reaching the sky without a card machine

The nearest cashpoint is 17 km away in Albox – fill your wallet before you leave the A-92. There is no petrol station within the municipality; the closest pumps are in Macael, 25 minutes by car. Monday and Tuesday are dead days: both bars close, the bakery stays shuttered and you’ll be breakfasting on whatever you brought with you.

Mobile coverage is patchy. Vodafone drops out completely in Alcudia; Movistar clings on if you stand in the church square and face north. Download offline maps, then assume you’ll explain your location to the breakdown man by counting almond trees.

Still, the night sky is compensation. At 700 metres, with the nearest street lamp two kilometres distant, the Milky Way feels close enough to snag on the church roof. Sit on the threshing floor above Benizalón after 10 p.m. and you’ll hear owls, the creak of a distant stable door and, if the wind is right, the clack of dominoes from the bar below. Bring a jacket – even July nights can dip below 15 °C – and remember that the lorry you met at the blossom bend is probably still working its way home.