Benalúa de las Villas

The morning bell tolls at 828 metres above sea level, and the sound carries farther than any gull's cry along the Costa del Sol. From the simple parish tower, the note rolls across a silver-green ocean of olive branches that stretches clear to the Jaén frontier. This is Benalúa de las Villas, a village of barely five thousand souls where the only traffic jam is caused by a farmer leading three mules to the lower terraces.

Granada airport lies 56 minutes away by hire car—Malaga is nearly three times farther—yet few travellers wheel their suitcases this deep into the Montes range. Those who do discover a place that measures distance in vertical metres, not beach towels per square metre. Houses climb the slope in uneven tiers; the higher you walk, the older the masonry and the broader the view over the province's largest continuous olive plantation. Wear proper shoes: what the tourist office politely calls "a somewhat disorderly urban layout" translates into calf-burning lanes that taper to staircases without warning.

The arithmetic of altitude

Elevation changes everything. Summer evenings cool quickly; a cardigan replaces the air-conditioning unit. Winter mornings can touch freezing, and when the levante wind arrives the mercury feels ten degrees lower than Granada's forecast. Spring is the sweetener—April turns the million olive buds white, releasing a faint honey scent that drifts through open windows. Autumn means harvest: tractors dragging twin-axle trailers crawl along the caminos while crews beat branches with long flexible poles. It is noisy, dusty work, yet the village bakery still opens at seven and the bar still serves coffee at one euro twenty.

There is no sea view, but water shapes life here all the same. Acequias—narrow irrigation channels hacked into the hillside centuries ago—gurgle behind garden walls, feeding vegetable plots heavy with broad beans and leaf lettuce. Public fountains run constantly; locals top up five-litre carboys for the week's drinking supply. The system comes from the Moors, who also left the habit of building thick-walled houses around interior patios. Peer through an open doorway and you will often glimpse a potted lemon tree and a line of washing catching the downdraught from the sierra.

Between church and campo

The parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Encarnación is not ornate. Whitewashed walls, a single rectangular tower, wooden doors painted the regulation Andalusian green: it could be dismissed as plain until you notice how every lane eventually tilts toward the plaza in front of it. On feast days the stone steps become seating, and the faithful spill outside while the brass band squeezes itself under the portico. Evening Mass is the social thermostat; after the final hymn the square empties in less than five minutes as families head home to eat.

Walk five minutes farther uphill and stone gives way to earth. A lattice of farm tracks fans out toward scattered cortijos—stone farmhouses whose roofs sag like the backs of elderly mules. None are postcard-perfect; many still house working dogs, rusting ploughs and three generations at once. Public footpaths exist, but way-marking is sporadic. The safest tactic is to follow the signed "Ruta del Olivar" that leaves from the cemetery gate, does a 4.5-kilometre loop through two hamlets, and returns in time for lunch. Expect gradients of 12 per cent and the occasional bounding shepherd dog that stops short at the invisible property line.

What lands on the table

Food is mountain fare: filling, inexpensive, short on presentation, long on ceramic. At Restaurant Alexander—really the only full-service dining room in the centre—a starter of migas (fried breadcrumbs with garlic and chorizo) arrives in a portion large enough for two British mains. The house wine is young Granada tempranillo served at cellar temperature; the olive oil, pressed five kilometres down the road, has enough pepper to make you cough. Ask for the gazpacho serrano in July and you receive a bowl of hot, chunky soup thickened with egg and ham—nothing like the chilled tomato version sold on the coast. Price for three courses: about £18, including bread and a postre of cinnamon rice pudding.

For lighter appetites the Bar Plaza serves montaditos—mini baguette sandwiches—stuffed with local serrano from the village butcher. Order one with a caña (small beer) and you will pay €2.50, less if the barman knows you are staying nearby. Tapas are not complimentary here; this is rural Granada, not metropolitan Granada.

When the calendar tells you to come

Fiestas patronales shift each year but usually fall in the last week of August. Expect nightly concerts ending well after 2 a.m., communal paellas for four hundred, and a foam party in the municipal pool that empties the next day's supply of hot water. Rooms are scarce; book six months ahead or commute from Granada city. Semana Santa is quieter—processions of thirty parishioners, no brass bands, incense drifting through lanes barely two metres wide. Photographers like the late-October olive-oil fiesta: presses open their doors, tankards of new oil are passed round, and someone inevitably demonstrates how to toast bread on an open fire and rub it with tomato and salt.

The practical bit you cannot ignore

A car is non-negotiable. The weekday bus to Granada leaves at 6.45 a.m. and returns at 2 p.m.; miss it and you are hitch-hiking with the harvest crews. Roads are good but serpentine: the A-4075 climbs 400 m in 8 km, and the guardrail is decorative rather than protective. In winter carry snow chains; the pass north toward Jaén closes two or three times a year. Phone reception is fine on the main drag, zero in many olive groves—download offline maps before setting out.

Accommodation consists of two small guesthouses and a handful of self-catering cottages booked through Spanish sites. None have pools; the municipal pool opens June to September and charges €2 for a day pass. British-style breakfasts are unheard of: if you want eggs at 8 a.m., buy them the night before and borrow a frying pan.

Leaving without the coast

Benalúa will never tick the boxes of a Costa resort. There are no beach bars, no English newspapers, no marina selfies. What it offers instead is continuity: the same planting cycle, the same bell tone, the same lunchtime beer that your neighbour's grandfather drank. If that sounds limiting, stay on the A-44 and head south. If it sounds honest, park the car, climb the first steep lane, and listen for the sound of olives rustling like rain even when the sky is clear.