Villanueva de Algaidas

The church bell tolls at 536 metres above sea level, and the sound carries across olive groves that stretch farther than the eye can manage. Villanueva de Algaidas doesn't do postcard views – it does agriculture, proper and unapologetic. Tractors rumble through streets designed for mules. The air smells of diesel and new oil, depending which way the wind turns.

This is working Andalucía, not the version sold in seaside brochures. Five thousand people live here, most with family trees deeper than the olive roots. They'll tell you the village name twice: first time for the record, second time because you've probably never heard it. They're used to that.

Morning in the Groves

Dawn starts early. By seven the hillside tracks buzz with pick-up trucks heading for fincas that fan out in every direction. November through February means olive harvest, and the whole place shifts into a rhythm older than the petrol engine. Locals speak of la campaña the way city folk discuss quarterly targets – it's the annual push that pays the bills.

Visitors can watch, but not from close quarters. Mechanical harvesters shake branches like oversized hairdryers; crews move fast and don't fancy tripping over curious photographers. Stay on the public caminos and you'll see enough: sack after sack of verdial and hojiblanco olives waiting at cooperative gates, scales clicking, tickets printing, the serious business of liquid gold.

Spring offers better walking weather. Temperatures hover around 18 °C in April, ideal for following the old mule tracks that link scattered cortijos – stone farmsteads with horseshoe arches and crumbling threshing floors. Some still smoke from real fires; others stand roofless, their beams sold off decades ago. Nobody charges admission because nobody quite owns them. Take water: there's no café for miles.

Lunch at Street Level

Back in the village centre, midday belongs to men in Berghaus boots and waxed jackets who've spent the morning pruning. They queue at Bar Cruz for montaditos de pringá – pork-shoulder rolls that cost €2.20 and stain the paper brown. Women arrive later, ordering media raciones of berenjenas con miel while discussing whose grandson has emigrated to Madrid.

The daily set menu at Restaurante La Viñuela costs €12 and includes wine. Expect gazpacho thick enough to stand a spoon in, followed by pollo a la plancha that tastes of charcoal rather than freezer. Chips come as standard; salad appears if the supplier arrived. Vegetarians get eggs and more eggs – this is not a town that has discovered tahini.

Friday brings churros to the plaza. A van parks at 09:00 sharp, sets up a steel cauldron, and sells twisted dough until the batter runs out. Locals drown them in coffee so strong it could peel paint. Bring cash: the nearest ATM is twelve kilometres away in Archidona, and the bakery card machine has been "broken since summer".

Keys, Caves and Closed Doors

The tourist office isn't. There is a desk inside the town hall, open Tuesday and Thursday mornings, staffed by Pilar who also handles parking permits. Ask nicely and she'll lend you the heavy iron key to the Ermita de la Virgen de la Villa – a ninth-century Mozarabic cave-church hacked into limestone on the northern ridge. It's a forty-minute stroll through almond trees, longer if you stop to photograph the ruined cortijo half-way up.

Inside, the chapel smells of candle wax and damp stone. Frescoes flake like old pastry. The altar cloth was embroidered by eight women during the Civil War; their names are stitched into the hem. Lock up afterwards and drop the key back through the letterbox if Pilar has gone to lunch. Nobody checks, but the next visitor will be stuck.

The parish church of La Inmaculada stands square on the site of an earlier mosque. Its tower wears glazed tiles the colour of oxidised copper, visible from almost anywhere in town. Step in around 11:00 and you'll catch the cleaner humming saetas while she polishes pews. Drop a euro in her tin: it goes towards new hymn books, the old ones having lost their back pages to generations of bored schoolboys.

Where to Sleep (and Where Not)

Motorhomes cluster on the purpose-built aire beside the Polideportivo – free, with grey-water dump and tap that actually works. Weekend nights double as the local botellón: teenagers park hatchbacks, crank reggaetón, and argue until the Guardia Civil cruise past at 03:00. Light sleepers should continue three kilometres up the hill to Casa Valle de Oro, a three-room B&B run by a Dutch-Spanish couple who left Rotterdam for olive saplings and silence.

Rooms start at €70 including breakfast: fresh orange juice, eggs from hens named after opera characters, and bread that began life as sourdough starter in Amsterdam. Dinner is available if you book before noon – pork fillet in apple sauce, home-grown salad, wine from Ronda. British guests compare it to a Cotswold retreat, minus the price tag and the pretension.

Summer nights stay hot until well past midnight. Windows stay open; dogs bark at anything that moves; the church bell chimes every half hour without fail. By contrast, January mornings can dip to 2 °C inside the older houses – stone walls two feet thick weren't designed for central heating.

When to Come, When to Skip

April and May deliver green wheat between the olive rows, poppies splashing verges, and daylight that stretches past 20:30. September offers similar temperatures but shorter days and the first scent of woodsmoke. October brings the local feria: three evenings of casetas, plastic cups of fino, and dodgems assembled by men who light cigarettes while bolting the rides together.

August is fierce. Thermometers touch 38 °C by mid-afternoon; the plaza empties except for elderly men in caps who move their chairs to follow the shade. Shops shut from 14:00 until 18:00; even the dogs crawl under cars for cool tarmac. Only night owls thrive – dinner starts at 22:00, processions of tractors trailing dust clouds as they return from nocturnal harvesting.

December means olive oil so new it stings the throat. Cooperative doors stay open so locals can refill five-litre bottles straight from the steel tank. The liquid glows emerald, cloudy with microscopic particles that will settle over winter. Taste it on crusty bread with a pinch of salt and understand why nobody here buys supermarket brands.

Leave before the sun drops if you're driving to the coast. The A-7205 switchbacks down the hill, unlit and narrow, with tractor drivers who assume headlights are optional. Granada lies ninety minutes east, Seville two hours west – close enough for a day trip, far enough that Villanueva keeps its own slow pulse.

You won't find fridge magnets. You might find conversation, thick coffee, and the realisation that Spain's economy still runs on villages most maps ignore. If that sounds like enough, come. If you need souvenir shops and sunset viewpoints, keep driving – the coast has plenty.