Benalúa

The church bell strikes noon and the only other sound is gravel crunching under your boots. From the plaza you can see two worlds: south-east, the snow-striped ridge of Sierra Nevada; north-west, a wrinkled moonscape of ochre gullies that looks more like Utah than Spain. Benalúa sits on the hinge between them, 886 m above sea level and light-years away from the Costa del Sol.

A village that refuses to hurry

Whitewashed houses climb a modest hill; most are two storeys with green-painted balconies and curtains that flap in the continental breeze. There is no souvenir strip, no craft-beer taproom, no Instagram-friendly mural. The tourist office is a glass cupboard inside the town hall, open on Tuesday and Thursday mornings if the key can be found. In other words, Benalúa is still a place where neighbours carry chairs outside to watch the evening cool down.

The centre can be walked in twenty minutes, yet the detours are rewarding. Calle Parras narrows until a single car can barely pass; overhead, wires sag with the weight of ripening grapes that the householders never seem to harvest. Peek through an open doorway and you may see a courtyard tiled in the old style, a tinaja for rainwater and a caged canary that sings louder than the traffic there isn’t.

At the top, the parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Anunciación squats on its own rocky shelf. Parts of the tower are sixteenth-century, the rest rebuilt after an 1880s earthquake. Step inside and the air drops five degrees; the altarpiece is gilded, but the floor is simple terracotta worn smooth by farmers’ boots. Climb the external stairway that hugs the east wall for a free panorama: red roofs, almond groves and, on very clear winter days, the 3,000-metre peaks of the Sierra glinting like cut glass.

Caves, clay and silence

The real surprise lies on the outskirts. Follow the signposts for “Barrio de las Cuevas” and asphalt gives way to packed earth. Here thirty-odd family homes are burrowed into the hillside, their fronts nothing more than white chimneys and wooden doors set in the clay. Many are weekend retreats for Granadinos, but a handful are let to travellers. Inside, the temperature sits at a steady 18 °C year-round: warm in February, cool in August, always whisper-quiet. Bedrooms at the back are windowless and pitch-black even at midday—bring a torch or risk missing the loo.

The landscape beyond the caves is textbook badlands. Soft marl and sandstone have been scoured into knife-edge ridges and miniature canyons no wider than a London bus. A 4-km loop starts from the cemetery gate, marked by occasional stone cairns and the footprints of wild boar. After rain the path turns to grease; in high summer it crumbles to dust. Either way, you are unlikely to meet another soul. Allow ninety minutes, robust footwear and water—there is no café on the ridge.

What to eat and when to eat it

Benalúa’s kitchens still observe the old rhythm of the province. Breakfast is toast rubbed with tomato and a glug of olive oil; if you are lucky, the bar will have ajar of home-made miel de caña, molasses thick enough to stand a spoon in. Mid-morning calls for a coffee in Bar Carmen on Plaza de la Constitución. Order a caña of beer and a plate of migas—fried breadcrumbs, cubes of ham and a squeeze of melon that sounds odd until you try it. Locals mop the juices with bread, then wipe the plate clean; follow their lead and no one will guess you arrived on the Gatwick flight.

Lunch is the main event. Most restaurants will serve you papas a lo pobre, potatoes softened in olive oil with green pepper and a runny egg on top. It is filling, cheap and entirely unspicy—comfort food for agricultural workers who once ploughed these slopes with mules. If you need something lighter, buy a bag of ripe peaches from the roadside stall on the A-92 junction; they taste like sunshine and require no knife.

Evening begins late. At 9 pm the temperature finally drops below 25 °C and tables appear on the pavement outside Bar Casa Paco. The house wine comes from Bodega Calvente in nearby Purullena, light enough to drink chilled, fruity enough to fool you into ordering a second bottle. Ask for tapas and you may receive a skewer of grilled pork or a saucer of spicy fried chorizo—still complimentary with each drink, a habit that survives here because no one has told them they can charge extra.

Roads, rhythms and rock concerts

Getting in is straightforward. From Granada airport the A-92 eastbound is dual carriageway all the way; leave at junction 292 and the village is 8 km of well-surfaced mountain road. Allow 55 minutes total. A hire car is almost essential: the last bus from Granada leaves at 19:30 and does not run on Sundays.

Staying longer than a night or two means slowing to local speed. The small supermarket shuts between 14:00 and 17:30; bread appears at 11:00 and is usually gone by 13:00. If you arrive on a Sunday expecting lunch after 15:30, you will go hungry—unless you booked at Casa Paco and even they draw the line at 16:00.

The calendar is dotted with events outsiders rarely hear about. Easter processions are candle-lit and whisper-quiet; hooded penitents carry floats no wider than the streets, accompanied by a drum that echoes off the walls like a heartbeat. August brings Benarock, an open-air festival that imports Spanish indie bands and a sound system loud enough to rattle windows until 03:00. Cave-dwellers on the edge of town sleep undisturbed; anyone in the upper village should bring earplugs or join the party.

The honest verdict

Benalúa will never make the “top ten” lists and that is precisely its appeal. You come for the contrast: snowy mountains at breakfast, Martian badlands by lunch. You stay because no one tries to sell you anything. A single morning is enough to see the sights; add a day for walking, another for stargazing—the lack of light pollution turns the sky into a planetarium—and you have the slow-motion break you probably meant to book in the first place.

Just remember the village is small, the menus repetitive and August loud. If you need artisan gin, cash machines that speak English or a beach, stay on the coast. If you are happy with silence, robust red wine and a bedroom that feels like a Neolithic bunker, Benalúa delivers more authenticity than most of Andalucía’s headline acts—and at half the price.