Fonelas

Eight hundred and ten metres above the sea-level confusion of the Costa Tropical, Fonelas sits high enough for the air to feel thin and clean. On clear evenings the Sierra Nevada appears as a white saw-blade on the western horizon, while the Mediterranean is only a pale stripe you might miss if nobody pointed it out. Night comes quickly; by ten o’clock the temperature can drop ten degrees, and the Milky Way spills across the sky with a clarity that makes suburban stargazers swear aloud. There are no streetlights beyond the single row in the village centre, and the only competing glow comes from the windows of thirty-odd cave houses burrowed into the hillside.

Cave Life at 810 Metres

British visitors usually arrive with the print-out for Cuevas La Chumbera or one of the smaller cave rentals tucked above the almond terraces. The appeal is immediate: walls a metre thick keep interiors at 19 °C even when the thermometer outside brushes 40 °C in July. Heating bills are similarly kind in January, when the surrounding plateau can frost overnight. What the websites rarely mention is the acoustic courtesy of living underground; neighbourly spats and toddler tantrums are mercifully muffled, but so is mobile signal. Download offline maps before you lock the hire-car doors.

The village itself is a five-minute wander. Houses are whitewashed, but not in the postcard manner of the Alpujarras further south; here the paint is patchy, the iron balconies used for drying seed corn rather than geraniums. At the centre stands the sixteenth-century Iglesia de la Inmaculada Concepción, its stone the colour of burnt cream. The door is usually open, revealing a nave that mixes late-Gothic ribs with Renaissance panels added after an earthquake in 1884. There is no ticket desk, no audio guide, only a handwritten sign asking for one-euro donations towards roof repairs. Drop the coin in the box and you may have the place to yourself, unless the parish priest is practising hymn chords on an electronic keyboard bought second-hand in Granada.

Walking Without Waymarks

Fonelas has no tourist office, hence no glossy leaflets describing “ Sendero A, B or C”. Instead, old irrigation paths fan out from the northern edge, following shallow ravines where natural springs keep reed beds green even in August. The most straightforward route heads north-east towards the Fuente del Moral, a twenty-minute stroll on a stony track wide enough for a mule. From there you can continue for another hour through century-old olives, looping back along the ridge that overlooks the village. The gradient is gentle, but there is zero shade; carry more water than you think sensible and start early. In March the hillsides are white with almond blossom, while late-October brings a brief, noisy season when families shake the nuts onto tarpaulins and the air smells faintly of marzipan.

Serious hikers sometimes use Fonelas as a cheap dormitory for the Badlands north of Guadix, a surreal moonscape of eroded gullies popular with geology students. The drive takes twenty-five minutes on the A-325, a road so empty you can set cruise control and watch eagles circling above the crash barriers. Bring walking poles; the clay crust crumbles like stale cheese and the villages at the far side have no taps, let alone pubs.

What Locals Eat (and When They Eat It)

There is one bar-restaurant, simply called “Bar Fonelas”, open Tuesday to Sunday 08:00–16:00. Coffee costs €1.20 if you stand at the counter, €1.50 if you sit; the difference is non-negotiable. The daily menú del día is €10 and arrives in three courses without a menu: soup or salad, then migas—fried breadcrumbs laced with garlic and soft chorizo—followed by a slab of custard flan. Vegetarians can ask for “migas sin chorizo” and receive a sympathetic shrug plus extra peppers. Wine is from a plastic jug labelled “vino de la casa” and tastes better than it has any right to.

If you prefer self-catering, shop before you arrive. The village colmado stocks UHT milk, tinned tuna and a single brand of English teabags kept for the Dutch couple who overwinter in cave number seven. Fresh vegetables appear on Thursday afternoons when a white van drives up from Motril; the queue forms early and the broccoli sells out first. Serious provisioning happens in Baza, twenty minutes north on the A-325, where the Mercadona has proper cheddar and even Marmite on the “international” shelf.

Local specialities worth the drive include jamón from Trevélez, a mountain village an hour away whose hams cure at altitude and taste milder than Italian prosciutto. Almond biscuits, called “tortas de almendra”, are baked in nearby Darro and keep for weeks if you can resist them. Pair either with a glass of sweet moscatel from the coastal vineyards at Motril; the contrast between mountain cold and seaside sugar is unexpectedly satisfying.

Festivals Without Fireworks Budgets

Fonelas celebrates its patron saint, the Inmaculada Concepción, on 8 December with a midday mass and a free-flowing bar run by the village council. Emigrants who left for Barcelona or Luton in the 1970s return with hired Renaults and British grandchildren who speak no Spanish but quickly learn to chase sweets thrown from the church steps. The atmosphere is less fiesta, more extended family reunion; strangers are welcomed, photographed and plied with anisette.

May brings the Fiesta de las Cruces, when neighbours erect small flower-decked crosses in doorways and compete for a €100 prize that traditionally pays for the following year’s geraniums. There are no processions or flamenco troupes, just loudspeakers playing seventies copla and elderly men arguing over whether the judge favoured their cousin’s floral arrangement. Book early if you want a cave; every spare bed is claimed by relatives who would rather drive from Granada than admit the village has become a tourist curiosity.

Getting There, Getting Cash, Getting Home

Granada airport is 75 minutes west, Almería slightly further east. Both have hire-car desks that will hand over the keys if you arrive with the paper counterpart code UK drivers still need post-Brexit. From the A-92 take exit 292 towards Benalúa, then follow the GR-3404 for seven kilometres of winding but well-surfaced road. Petrol is cheaper at the Repsol on the Guadix ring-road; fill up before the final climb.

The village ATM belongs to Unicaja and is empty from Friday evening until Monday morning. Bring at least €100 in cash for groceries and the collection plate. Mobile coverage favours Vodafone; EE users should stand on the church steps and face north. Wi-Fi in the caves averages 6 Mbps—enough to send WhatsApp photos of the starlit sky, too slow for Netflix. That, of course, is rather the point.

Come March or late October, when daytime temperatures hover around 22 °C and the almond blossom or autumn colours provide the only decoration you need. August is fierce, January can bite, and both months remind you that mountain villages were designed for farmers, not holidaymakers. Treat Fonelas as a place to switch off the engine and the phone, walk until your boots are dusty, then sit outside listening to goat bells while the Milky Way re-arranges itself overhead. Just remember to buy broccoli on Thursday—and don’t expect anyone to sell you a souvenir.