Lanteira

The cemetery sits above the village like a watchtower. Muslim headstones, weathered to soft lumps, tilt west towards the almond terraces and the hazy trough of the Guadix basin. Nobody mentions it on the village website, yet most British visitors who make the 1,278-metre climb come away talking about the place more than the sixteenth-century church or the hand-painted street signs. Lanteira is that sort of village: the extras matter more than the brochure.

At first glance it looks like a spill of sugar cubes down a brown hillside. White houses cling to the slope, roofs pitched steep enough to shed winter snow, streets just wide enough for a donkey and a glare of sunlight. The permanent population hovers around 555, swollen at weekends by families from Granada and the odd Manchester hiker who has read, somewhere, that the village is a quiet springboard into the northern Sierra Nevada. They come, they park on the only level bit of tarmac next to the playground, and they stand blinking in the thin air, wondering what to do until the mesón opens at two.

The answer is to walk. Paths start immediately behind the last row of houses, signed with hand-painted stones that promise “Río Alhama 45 min” as if time were a fixed commodity. The descent is a knee-jarring staircase of loose shale; poles help, and so does the knowledge that the river pools are deep enough for a swim from May onwards. Turn upwards instead and the track switches through abandoned almond terraces, the soil held in place by dry-stone walls older than most European capitals. After an hour the pine shadow begins and the temperature drops five degrees; snow patches can linger here until Easter.

Spring is the kindest season. By April the acequias run again, gurgling beside the paths, and the almonds flower so suddenly that overnight the hills look like discarded wedding lace. Daytime temperatures sit in the low twenties, perfect for a circular route that leaves the village at dawn, climbs to the abandoned farm of El Cortijuelo for lunch, and drops back down in time for a beer on the square. Come August the same route is a furnace. British walkers have been rescued here with heat exhaustion; the Guardia Civil advice is to start before eight or don’t start at all. Even at altitude the sun reflects off the white walls and the air feels like hot metal.

Winter brings its own bargain. Skies scrubbed clean by the tramontana reveal the whole chain of the Sierra Nevada, from the Veleta summit to the tiled roofs of Trevélez twenty kilometres west. Days are short but the light is sharp enough to hurt. If snow falls the access road from the A-92 is chained up by nine; without a 4×4 you may spend the night listening to the village generator and the occasional bleat of a goat. Accommodation is limited to eight rooms at La Posada del Altozano, half-board optional, heating reliable. Book by phone—email is still regarded with suspicion—and ask whether the boiler has been serviced since the last cold snap.

Food is mountain fuel rather than delicate cuisine. The mesón serves migas on Thursdays, breadcrumbs fried with garlic and flecks of jamón, enough to keep a rambler going until supper. Friday is choto, kid goat stewed with bay and a splash of the local red that costs €2.50 a glass, cheaper than bottled water and arguably better for you. Vegetarians get eggs and potatoes, sometimes both at once. Pudding is likely to be an almond cake; the nuts come from the cooperative across the square where you can buy a 200 g packet of Trevélez ham for a fiver, milder than Italian prosciutto and less intimidating for first-time jamón buyers.

There is no cash machine. The nearest ATM is fifteen minutes down the hill in Jérez del Marquesado, a drive that feels longer when you meet a delivery van on a bend carved from solid rock. Fill your wallet before you arrive; the village shop will swap a twenty-euro note but only if you buy water, stamps and a lottery ticket. Public transport runs twice daily from Granada except Sunday, when nothing moves unless you count the shepherd’s dog chasing the postman’s Fiat. Hire a car at Malaga airport—1 h 50 min on the A-92, last twenty on hairpins—or accept that you are marooned in the most agreeable way possible.

Fiestas punctuate the lethargy. The patronal fair in mid-March enlarges the village threefold; suddenly there are brass bands at two in the morning and teenagers attempting rodeo on the basketball court. August brings the verbenas, plastic tables set around the fountain, elder passing round plates of paella from a pan the size of a satellite dish. Semana Santa is quieter: a dozen hooded figures carry the Virgen de la Anunciación down the slope so steep that the bearers lean backwards like limbo dancers. Even non-believers find the hairs rising on their arms when the procession squeezes into a lane barely wider than the canopy.

What you won’t find is a checklist of sights to tick off. The church is open only for mass; the castle everybody mentions turned out to be a threshing circle with good views. Instead Lanteira offers a lesson in proportion. Walk three hours, eat a plate of migas, nap through the heat, then sit on the wall above the cemetery while the sun drops behind the Veleta and the valley fills with lavender shadow. Somebody’s grandfather will nod good evening, the church bell will strike eight, and the day will feel complete without a single selfie to prove it happened.

Leave before checkout time and the posada will give you a paper bag of almond biscuits for the road. The road itself is still quiet, the motorway still an hour away. Halfway down you’ll pass the turning for the Muslim cemetery; pull in, walk the last fifty metres, and look back. From up there Lanteira is just a pale smudge on a brown mountainside, indistinguishable from a hundred other villages—until you remember that here the Sierra Nevada starts at your doorstep, lunch costs less than a London coffee, and nobody ever asked what you do for a living. Then the place stops being a smudge and becomes, quite simply, somewhere you know.