Rioja

The church bell strikes midday and every shutter in Rioja snaps shut. A single swallow wheels over the white roofs, then gives up and heads for the riverbed. You have entered the Spanish interior’s most dependable siesta, 122 m above sea level and exactly zero kilometres from the nearest bodega. This is Rioja, Almería – not the cellar-tour theme park of northern Spain – and the only thing being poured at noon is ice-cold tap water.

What the guidebooks forgot to mention

Rioja’s name confuses booking clerks and sat-navs alike. Mention it in Britain and people pack corkscrews; mention it in Almería and they point south-east, toward a grid of lemon-washed houses that clings to the right bank of the Andarax. The village has 1,594 residents, one main traffic light and no vineyard whatsoever. What it does have is an agricultural clock that still governs the streets: elderly men walk dogs at dawn, tractors appear at first light, and by 14:00 the place resembles a film set waiting for the cast to return.

That rhythm makes it a practical day trip from the provincial capital – Almería city is 32 km away, a 35-minute drive on the A-391 – yet few hire cars make the detour. Most visitors are Spanish families tracing great-grandparents or cyclists who have discovered that the valley’s back lanes match Mallorca’s for gradient but not for traffic. Coach parties simply do not arrive, which means you can stand in the small Plaza de la Constitución and hear only the fountain and the creak of a bar’s metal blind.

A walk before the heat locks the doors

Start at the top where the road from the motorway spills into town. The ayuntamiento is painted a municipal shade of salmon and doubles as the tourist office; opening hours are taped to the door in felt-tip pen. Collect the rough map – it’s a photocopy, free – and head downhill. Streets narrow to the width of a donkey cart; stone drainage channels run down the centre. Houses are chalk-white because the local clay refuses to hold coloured paint; after a dust storm they look accidentally varnished.

The Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Rosario appears suddenly, its square tower disproportionate to the settlement below. Restoration scaffolding has been a semi-permanent feature since 2019, but the interior is open more often than not. Inside, the air smells of candle wax and damp stone; the altarpiece is an 18th-century essay in gilt overload. Drop fifty céntimos in the box and lights flicker on just long enough to notice that the carved grapes are purely decorative – still no wine.

Behind the apse a lane squeezes between high walls where trailing bougainvillea drops bracts onto wind-scoured flagstones. This is the start of the old Jewish quarter, though only a small plaque admits the fact; the houses were abandoned in 1492 and later rebuilt so many times that history feels like rumour. At the lane’s end you reach a mirador no wider than a balcony. Below, the Andarax glints – usually a trickle between gravel banks – and beyond it the olive carpet stretches to the Sierra de Gádor, snow-dusted in February, khaki by July.

Lunch that refuses to hurry

Rioja keeps three proper restaurants and a handful of bars whose menus change only when the market runs out of something. All serve the same three dishes foreigners have never heard of: gurullos (hand-rolled pasta stewed with hare), patatas a lo pobre (potatoes fried in olive oil with green pepper and egg) and remojón (salt-cod and orange salad that tastes better than it sounds). Prices hover around €9–€12 a plate; bread and a quarter-litre of house wine add €3.50. The wine, incidentally, comes from Alfaro, 700 km north-east – the closest Rioja vineyard.

Service is leisurely because the waitress is probably cousin to the carpenter at the next table. Accept the pace, order a second coffee, and you will be rewarded with churros on the house if the dough happens to be resting. Dietary requirements are catered for with a shrug: vegetarian equals ham-free, gluten-free equals bread-on-the-side. The Spanish phrase “soy celíaco” still produces the same mystified pause it did ten years ago.

Afternoon options, assuming you escaped lunch

If the day is cloudy – and winter cloud can park itself over the valley for a week – walk the signed loop that leaves from the old railway station (trains stopped in 1985). The 6 km circuit follows an irrigation channel, passes a ruined water-mill, then climbs gently among almonds. Interpretation boards give the Latin names of aromatic shrubs; wild thyme crunches underfoot like cornflakes. Allow two hours, carry water, and do not trust February sunshine – it flips to horizontal sleet without notice.

Summer demands earlier starts. Thermometers here reach 42 °C by early afternoon; the record is 48 °C in the shade, when even the lizards look for debit-card-sized patches of shadow. A sensible plan is to drive 15 km west to the Pantano de Beninar reservoir, park under the eucalyptus, and swim until the concrete banks stop radiating heat. The village pool back in Rioja opens only at weekends and costs €2; locals treat it as a social club, so bring change and expect commentary on your swimming style.

When the village decides to party

Rioja’s calendar is short, intense and largely free of outsiders. The Cruz de Mayo (first weekend in May) turns every plaza into a florist’s fridge: neighbours build three-metre-high crosses wrapped in carnations, then guard them with folding chairs and bottles of anis. At 01:00 the brass band strikes up; by 03:00 half the town is dancing sevillanas in the street while the other half pretends to sleep.

October brings the Fiestas de la Virgen del Rosario. The programme is printed on a single A4 sheet taped inside the bakery window: daytime processions, evening fairground rides, midnight fireworks that echo off the surrounding hills like artillery. Accommodation within the village is impossible – there are no hotels – but Almería city still has beds 35 minutes away. Turn up for the Saturday night and you will be handed a glass of mistela by someone who insists his grandfather knew your uncle during National Service.

August is more subdued. Heat discourages anything louder than a playlist plugged into the bar terrace; the highlight is an outdoor cinema screening of whatever DVD the mayor’s daughter brought back from university. Films start at 22:00 when the wall of the sports centre has finally cooled enough to lean against.

Getting there, staying over, getting out

No train reaches Rioja. ALSA bus 340 links Almería city with the village twice on weekdays, once on Saturdays, zero on Sundays; the fare is €2.65 and the journey 50 minutes of vineyards-that-aren’t-there. A hire car remains the practical choice – Europark at the airport quotes around €30 a day in low season, €55 in August. Petrol is cheaper than Britain; parking in Rioja is wherever you can squeeze a wheel without blocking a tractor.

Sleeping options are limited. There is one rural house with four bedrooms, Casa de los Mora, booked through the municipal website; expect ceiling fans, stone floors and a roof terrace that collects desert dust overnight. Price is €70 per night for the whole place, minimum two nights. Otherwise you base yourself in Almería and day-trip, which suits most visitors because the village really does roll up the pavements after 21:30.

Leave before the church bell strikes noon again and you will miss the point. Rioja does not astound; it accumulates – the smell of thyme on a hot wind, the sight of an elderly man watering his geraniums with a metal can, the taste of coffee that costs less than the biscuit served with it. You will not tick a world-class monument, but you will understand why some Spaniards still shape their days around shade, bells and the certainty that tomorrow the same swallows will circle an empty plaza.