Jaén

Dawn over 70 million trees

From the castle battlements the city looks like an island adrift in a silver-green ocean. Row upon row of olive trees march to every compass point, their leaves flashing pale in the early light. Jaén sits at 574 metres, high enough to catch the breeze yet low enough to feel the south Spanish heat. The cathedral’s twin towers rise above a patchwork of terracotta roofs, while behind them the Sierra Magina keeps watch at 2,100 metres. It is a view that explains, faster than any museum panel, why this province presses half of Spain’s olive oil each autumn.

Most British travellers speed past on the A-4, bound for Granada or the coast. Those who peel off at junction 325 find a working city of 111,000 people rather than a manicured theme park. There are traffic lights, dentists, even a branch of Primark. Yet between the ordinary rhythms you’ll glimpse a Renaissance façade cut from honey-coloured stone, or catch the peppery scent of new oil drifting from a bar doorway. The mix is oddly reassuring: real life with a medieval accent.

Uphill, then up again

Jaén is built on slopes so unforgiving that taxi drivers count contour lines instead of miles. Comfortable shoes are not a fashion statement here; they are survival kit. Start in Plaza de Santa María, where the cathedral’s west front looms like a stone cliff. Andrés de Vandelvira, the same architect who shaped Úbeda’s golden squares, designed it in the 1540s, adding a Baroque overcoat a century later. Inside, the sacristy feels almost London-like with its coffered ceiling and Tudor-depth oak doors, until you spot the reliquary said to hold Christ’s face cloth. Entry is €6, but Thursday to Saturday night tours (€10) include the roof; wrap up—Andalusian nights can be surprisingly cold when the wind skims across the parapet.

From the cathedral it is a stiff twenty-minute climb to the Castillo de Santa Catalina, rebuilt by Ferdinand III after he captured the city in 1246. The parapet walk delivers the payoff view: olive groves pixelating into blue distance, the Guadalquivir valley braided with morning mist. A small interpretation centre occupies the former chapel; panels are in Spanish only, but the attendant will happily mime siege tactics if you look puzzled. Taxis can tackle the access road, yet the sign-posted footpath (1.2 km, mostly steps) is the better story. Go an hour before sunset and you’ll share the ramparts only with swifts and perhaps a German backpacker writing postcards.

Oil that bites back

Jaén produces more extra-virgin olive oil than the whole of Italy. The locals call it “liquid gold” without a trace of irony; they drizzle it over toast for breakfast, pour it on cold tomato soup at lunch, then repeat at dinner. To understand the obsession, duck into the Palacio de Villardompardo on Plaza de Santa Luisa de Marillac. Beneath the Renaissance courtyard lie the best-preserved Arab baths in Spain, steam rooms still patterned with star-shaped vents. Upstairs, the Museo de Artes y Costumbres Populares runs a free 15-minute tasting. A guide will hand you a cobalt glass, warm it between your palms, and tell you to sniff for “fresh-cut grass, banana skin or artichoke”. When you sip, the oil stings the back of the throat—that peppery kick is oleocanthal, an anti-inflammatory the NHS would probably prescribe if it came in tablet form.

Several working mills around the city open for weekday visits. Almazara Elaia, five kilometres out on the Bulevar del Úbeda, charges €12 for a 90-minute tour that ends with bread, oil and a souvenir 250 ml bottle. Book by WhatsApp: they reply faster than most UK customer helplines. Campaign season runs October to January; arrive then and the air is thick with the sweet-sour smell of crushed olives.

What to eat between climbs

Lunch is serious business. Locals expect three courses and a siesta, which explains why everything shuts between 2 pm and 5 pm. Order the pipirrana and you’ll get a bowl of diced pepper, tomato and cucumber swimming in oil and topped with tuna—a sort of deconstructed salade niçoise minus the pretence. Migas, fried breadcrumbs with garlic and chorizo, started life as shepherd fuel; today it turns up on smart menus with a runny egg on top. Lamb from the Segura mountains is roasted so slowly the meat slips off the bone at the sight of a fork. Pudding usually means pestiños, sesame fritters glazed with honey, best eaten hot while the chef pretends not to watch your reaction. A menú del día costs €12–14 and almost always includes a glass of wine; Jaén province may be too high for vines, but Rioja travels well.

Vegetarians face slim pickings outside the tourist haunts. Most bars will cobble together a grilled aubergine doused in, yes, more olive oil. Vegans should head to La Huelga de Jauja on Calle Maestra, where the owner speaks fluent Brighton after a season selling jewellery in the Lanes.

Into the sierra

When the city heat builds, the mountains offer instant air-conditioning. The Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas Natural Park begins 45 minutes north-east by car—Europe’s largest protected area, yet you can walk for three hours and meet only ibex griffon vultures wheeling overhead. Trails are way-marked to British standards; pick up the Ruta de las Pasarencias from the information hut at Torre del Vinagre, a gentle 7 km loop through pine and sweet chestnut. Entry is free; maps cost €3.50 and the ranger speaks enough English to warn you about hunting season on Mondays. At 1,200 metres the temperature drops ten degrees—pack a fleece even in July.

Back in town, the Parque de la Concordia, Jaén’s nearest attempt at a green lung, bursts into purple jacaranda bloom each May. Elderly men play pétanque beneath the trees while teenagers practise TikTok dances on the bandstand. It is a pleasant enough spot for a sandwich, but British expectations of manicured lawns should be left at home; the grass is scorched to straw by June.

When to come, where to sleep

Spring and autumn give warm days and cool nights without the furnace blast of July. Easter processions are less flamboyant than in Seville—no brass bands, just muffled drums and hooded penitents—yet the atmosphere is intimate rather than theatrical. Fiesta season peaks in October for San Lucas; hotels fill fast and prices jump 30 per cent.

The Parador de Jaén occupies the castle’s former wing. Rooms start at €150 including breakfast, but you are paying for the address rather than five-star fluff. Wi-Fi struggles with stone walls three metres thick, yet waking to see the sun lift over an olive sea almost justifies the tariff. Cheaper beds lie down in the new town: Hotel Europa on Plaza de Belén offers clean doubles for €55, underground parking included—a blessing because Jaén’s one-way system was designed by someone who clearly hated motorists.

The catch

Jaén is not pretty in the postcard sense. Half the centre is 1970s concrete, and the economic crash left empty shop fronts that still await new tenants. English is thin on the ground outside museums; waiters will patiently negotiate a menu, but don’t expect craft-beer chat. If you need constant stimulation, stick to Seville. Yet for travellers who like their Spain served straight, the city delivers: a cathedral you can enter without queueing, a castle sunset shared with six other people, and oil so fresh it makes you rethink every supermarket purchase back home. Bring comfortable shoes, a Spanish phrasebook and an empty suitcase for liquid gold. You won’t find flamenco troupes or rooftop gin bars—but you will leave with the slightly smug knowledge that you have seen Andalucía before the crowds arrived.