Campillos

The Tuesday market is already folding up when the first British-registered cars slide into the free car park behind the go-kart track. Stallholders pack away pyramids of oranges and denim-coloured aubergines; motorhomers pull down blinds, switch on kettles, compare notes on last night’s €12 menu del día. Nobody mentions the Costa del Sol, 60 kilometres south and suddenly irrelevant. In Campillos you get change from a twenty and a horizon that smells of wheat rather than suncream.

Plains, lagunas and the long view

Campillos sits at 500 metres on a natural corridor between Antequera and Ronda, a position that once made it a convenient day's ride for muleteers and now makes it a 50-minute dash from Málaga airport. The Guadalteba basin spreads out like a pale green tablecloth, stitched with silver-grey olive groves and dotted with three shallow lakes—Dulce, Salada and Capacete—that shrink and swell with the seasons. From February to May the flamingos commute in, a 15-minute drive to the larger lagoon at Fuente de Piedra where English information boards explain why the birds turn pinker the longer they stay. Bring binoculars: the nearest colony is close enough to hear the flap of wings that sound like wet umbrellas opening.

Back in town the landscape is agricultural rather than cinematic. Nineteenth-century townhouses with wrought-iron balconies alternate with 1970s apartment blocks painted the colour of pale custard. It is not pretty-pretty; it is lived-in, and the effect is oddly relaxing. Nobody tries to sell you a fridge magnet.

What passes for a castle and other low-key monuments

The castle is less a ruin than a rumour. A few courses of stone remain on a low hill at the north end of town; information is limited to a rusting plaque and the view south across cereal fields that shimmer like sharkskin in the breeze. Allow ten minutes, plus another five for the photos you’ll take simply because the light is reliable.

The sixteenth-century church of Santa María del Reposo is more rewarding. The tower dominates the skyline; inside, the air smells of candle wax and floor polish. Side chapels hold processional floats that shoulder their way through the streets every Easter: velvet canopies, gilt cherubs, the faint scent of lilies still clinging to the wood. Visit outside service times and you’ll have the place to yourself except for an occasional widow exchanging gossip with the sacristan.

Round the corner the Convento de San Sebastián keeps its seventeenth-century cloister locked unless you knock during office hours. A novice may open the grille, accept your €1 coin and point out the brick-vaulted refectory where the nuns once ate in silence. Modest, but then Campillos has never needed to shout.

Walking, cycling and the art of carrying water

Footpaths radiate from the town like bicycle spokes. The easiest is the Sendero de las Lagunas, a 7-kilometre loop that links the three local lakes on farm tracks hard enough for trainers. Interpretive boards show grebe and shoveler silhouettes; stilts pick their way through the reeds like Victorian ladies hiking hems across a puddle. Go early: by eleven the sun has the assertiveness of a dinner guest who refuses to leave.

Keener walkers head south to the Torcal de las Lagunas, a miniature version of El Torcal’s karst chaos but without the entrance fee or the tour buses. Water has sculpted limestone into stacks that resemble half-melted candles; the route is way-marked by cairns rather than signs, so download the track before you set off. Allow three hours, two litres of water and a hat that makes you look ridiculous—better that than sunstroke.

Road cyclists appreciate the grid of quiet lanes that fan out towards Sierra de Yeguas and the Ardales lakes. Gradients are gentle, traffic rare, and every 20 kilometres or so a venta (roadside inn) appears with a shady terrace and espresso for €1.20. Mountain bikers find the same tracks the shepherds use; expect loose shale, thorny encinas and the occasional bemused donkey.

Eating what the tractors smell like

Lunch starts at 13:30 and finishes when the last policeman ambles back to the station. Miss the slot and you’ll wait until 20:30, when the bars reopen and the television in the corner switches from chat show to football. In between, the streets are dozy and the only sound is the click-click of dominoes in the social club.

Locals eat porra, Campillos’ thicker cousin to gazpacho, served chilled in a terracotta bowl and topped with diced jamón and hard-boiled egg. It tastes like summer pudding without the sugar rush. Migas—fried breadcrumbs with chorizo and green peppers—appear on rainy days; the story goes that shepherds invented the dish to eke out stale bread, though modern tractors now have heated cabs and Bluetooth. Tradition sticks anyway.

For hesitant palates Restaurante Yerbagüena on Calle Real does a creditable ham-and-walnut croquette that tastes faintly of Christmas, plus pork loin grilled plain and sliced into stripes a child could manage. House wine comes in 500 ml carafes, enough to make the drive back to your accommodation feel legally dubious. If you need something stronger the bar on Plaza de España pours fino at €1.50 a glass; the barman will ask if you want it “frio o muy frio”—cold or very cold. Choose very cold.

When the town lets its hair down

Holy Week is family business. On Maundy Thursday the Cristo de la Buena Muerte leaves Santa María at midnight carried by twenty men in hooded robes; the only light comes from candles wedged in wicker holders. Spectators are mostly neighbours who’ve stepped out in slippers; visitors are welcome but nobody offers a translation sheet.

May brings the Feria de San Isidro, patron of farmers. Tractors polish their paint, children ride ponies round the fairground and the evening ends with a disco in a canvas tent that smells of candy floss and diesel. In August the Virgen de los Remedios is paraded to a shrine outside town and back again, an outing that doubles as a census of who’s still speaking to whom after last year’s argument over seating arrangements.

Beds, budgets and how not to get stranded

Accommodation is limited and priced accordingly. The three-star Hotel Doña Aldonza on the Polígono Industrial has 31 rooms with decent Wi-Fi, a pool that catches the afternoon breeze and rates around €55 bed-and-breakfast in shoulder season. Two rural cottages in the olive groves sleep four from €90 a night; owners leave keys under a flowerpot and trust you to strip the beds. Book early for April and October—migrating birds mean binocular-toting visitors.

Public transport exists but is best treated as a theoretical concept. The Antequera-Campillos shuttle train runs twice daily, timed for commuters rather than tourists, and the last bus back to Málaga leaves at 19:00. Hire a car at the airport instead; the A-357 is a fast dual carriageway until the final 12 kilometres, where lorries crawl uphill behind tractors. Fill the tank in Campillos—service stations thin out west of town and the next option is 40 kilometres on.

Cash matters. Many bars refuse foreign cards for sums under €10 and the only 24-hour ATM stands halfway up Calle Carrera; on festival weekends it runs out of notes by Saturday lunchtime. Bring euros or queue behind the baker who needs change for the cigarette machine.

The honest verdict

Campillos will not change your life. It offers no infinity pools, no Michelin stars, no souvenir tat. What it does give is a slice of inland Andalucía that still belongs to the people who live there: a town where the barman remembers how you take your coffee, where lakes turn pink in spring and where the loudest noise at night is a dog barking at a tractor headlight. Come for the birds, stay for the bread—fresh at 7 a.m. from the bakery opposite the church, warm enough to burn your fingers through the paper bag. Eat it on the plaza and watch the village wake up; by nine the day’s heat is already sharpening its nails, but for now the air smells of yeast and wet laurel and something that might just be authenticity, if you insist on giving it a name.