Turrillas

The morning bell strikes eight and the only reply is a Labrador barking two streets away. From the mirador beside the village sign, almond terraces drop away into a haze that thickens, forty kilometres south, into the Tabernas desert. Behind you, slate roofs angle like crooked teeth, each chimney puffing a wisp of woodsmoke that smells more of pine than of coal. This is Turrillas—population 278, altitude 847 m—halfway between the Mediterranean and the roof of Almería province, and stubbornly uninterested in being “discovered”.

A village that refuses to pose

Guidebooks like their white villages to be postcard-neat. Turrillas prefers utility. Washing still flaps above the lane that zigzags to the church; someone’s tractor tyre leans against a wall painted the exact shade of institutional green last seen on 1970s British school desks. The 16th-century Iglesia de San Andrés squats at the top, its Mudejar tower repaired so often the brickwork resembles a patchwork quilt. Inside, the Baroque altarpiece glints with gold leaf that local craftsmen re-lacquered after a lightning strike in 1983. Donations box: €1, coins only. No one checks, but the elderly sacristan will materialise if you try to photograph the priest’s chair.

Beyond the church door the plaza is the size of a tennis court. Elderly men occupy the bench in strict rotation: 11 am, Domingo; noon, Antonio; 1 pm, both plus Pepe if the sun has moved round. They drink coffee from plastic cups fetched across the road by grand-daughters who know exactly how much sugar each grandfather tolerates. There is no menu del día board; the bar simply cooks whatever María bought from the Thursday market in Níjar. Expect migas—fried breadcrumbs laced with chorizo and enough garlic to stun a vampire—served in a cereal bowl with a fork that’s slightly bent. Price: €6, bread included.

Walking into empty country

Hiking starts where the tarmac ends. Follow the concrete track past the last house and you’re on the GR-142, a long-distance path that threads the Filabres ridge for 130 km. Within ten minutes the village looks like a spilled box of sugar cubes. The trail is marked by faded yellow-and-white flashes painted by Andalusian mountain rangers in 2004; some have been over-zealously repainted, others weathered to ghosts, so a map app with offline tiles is wise—phone signal vanishes on the north-facing slope.

The standard hour-long circuit climbs to Cerro de la Cruz (1 025 m), a sandstone outcrop bristling with radio masts and the remains of a Civil War lookout post. Bring a jacket: even in May the wind can knife through cotton. The reward is a 270-degree sweep—from the snow-dusted Sierra Nevada on the western horizon to the cobalt stripe of the Med in the east. Binoculars will pick out the container port of Almería, thirty-five kilometres away, looking like a toddler’s toy set.

For something longer, continue east along the ridge to the abandoned village of El Chive. The path dips through a tunnel of Aleppo pines, then rises across slag-coloured schist that crunches like broken crockery. El Chive’s stone houses collapsed during the 1950s drought when the spring ran dry; roof beams now lie silvered like whale ribs. Allow three hours there and back, and carry water—there is none en route.

When the mountain cools

Winter arrives early at this height. Daytime temperatures in January flirt with 10 °C; at night they drop below freezing and the cobbles glaze over. The village’s single guest-house, Casa de los Filabres, switches on heating at 6 pm and off at 11 pm sharp—bring an extra blanket. Snow is rare but not impossible; February 2020 brought 18 cm that cut the access road for two days. If you’re renting, a front-wheel-drive hatchback with decent tyres is fine; leave the low-profile sports wheels at the airport.

Summer, conversely, is a game of two halves. Mid-afternoon in July can touch 36 °C, but by 9 pm thermometers read 22 °C and terrace tables fill. Locals swear by the terral, a mountain breeze that feels as if someone has opened a fridge door. Swifts wheel overhead, then disappear; the plaza fountain becomes the village soundtrack. Still, start walks at dawn. By 11 am the sun is punitive and shade is as rare as a queue.

Eating what the land yields

Turrillas has no supermarket, only a cooperative shop that unlocks for three hours each morning. Shelves stock tinned tuna, tinned tomatoes, tinned beans—notice the theme—and locally grown almonds sold in paper cones for €1. The almonds are smaller than California imports, sweeter, with a papery skin that lifts off after thirty seconds in boiling water. Buy two cones; they disappear fast on car journeys.

If you’re self-catering, the butcher’s van calls every Tuesday and Friday at 10:30 sharp. A shoulder of local lamb, enough for three, costs €14. Ask for choto (milk-fed kid) and you’ll be met with a shrug unless fiesta weekend approaches. The bakery van arrives daily at noon—baguettes €0.60, pan de pueblo (round sourdough) €1. Both vans toot their horns like ice-cream trucks; half the village emerges, purses in hand, gossip in tow.

The bar cooks only at lunchtime, but weekend evenings see a terraza grill. Pork ribs are rubbed with rosemary that grows wild along the lane; the chef uses vine cuttings for smoke, giving the meat a light, sweet note. Half-ration €7, full €12. House red comes in a plain carafe from Bodega Laujar in the Alpujarra—think Beaujolais without the marketing budget.

Where to lay your head

Accommodation totals four legal options: two village houses rented by the night, one rural apartment above the old olive mill, and a patch of level ground by the mirador where motorhomes park for free. The houses (bookable through the provincial website) sleep four, cost €70–€90 per night, and include fireplaces already laid with pine cones. Firelighters are frowned upon—use the picón (hardwood kindling) supplied. Hot-water tanks are modest; stagger showers or the fourth person gets a tepid trickle.

Wild campers report starry skies undimmed by light pollution and sunrise that paints the desert rose-gold. The downside is the village’s only public toilet is locked overnight; the bar expects you to buy breakfast before using its facilities. Close the gate after you; goats wander.

Leaving the balcony

By checkout the mirador is already warm. Swallows dive between agave spikes; somewhere a tractor coughs into life. Down in Almería the beach umbrellas will be going up, but up here the air still carries last night’s woodsmoke. Drive slowly—the AL-3103 drops 600 m in twelve hairpins, each bend revealing a wider slice of semi-desert until the motorway appears, grey and insistent. Turrillas shrinks in the mirror, white cubes clinging to a ridge that looks too narrow to hold them. The silence, improbably, travels with you: a reminder that some places remain indifferent to being ticked off a list, and are better for it.