Bélmez de la Moraleda

The woman at Number 5 Rodríguez Acosta Street keeps a plastic comb in her apron pocket for brushing her hair between visitors. She needs it—weekend afternoons bring a steady trickle of Brits who knock, apologise in phrase-book Spanish, and file into her kitchen to stare at the concrete floor. What they’re looking for isn’t grime or fancy tiles, but human faces that have re-appeared every year since 1971, no matter how often the slab is replaced or painted over. The phenomenon made the village briefly world-famous; today it’s a five-minute curiosity that costs whatever coins you push into the tobacco tin by the door.

Belmez de la Moraleda sits 825 m up the northern flank of the Sierra Mágina, 55 minutes’ drive north-east of Jaén city. Olive groves start at the valley bottom and climb until the slope turns to limestone crag; the village simply follows the gradient, streets tilting like a badly parked car. From the mirador below the ruined Moorish castle the view rolls south for forty kilometres—an ocean of silver-green trees that smells of leaf mulch and diesel when the pick-up harvesters trundle past. It’s the sort of panorama that makes you check your phone battery: you’ll want a photograph, even if you never look at it again.

A white-knuckle approach and what waits at the top

The A-324 switchbacks up from the A-4 at Bailén; lorries brake in clouds of burning clutch. Leave the dual carriageway and the road narrows to a single lane with passing bays. Sat-navs underestimate the climb: allow 25 min from Bailén, not 15. Once inside the village, streets are technically two-way but mirrors touch if both drivers breathe in. The signed car-park below the castle is the only sensible place to leave the car; after that everything is on foot and uphill.

The centre is a knot of three plazas and a handful of bars whose metal shutters roll down at 17:00 sharp. There is no bank, no cashpoint, and the last English menu was recycled years ago. Bring euros: even the municipal car park machine rejects cards. Weekenders from Jaén fill the terraces by 14:00; turn up at 15:30 and the kitchen has already mopped the floor.

Faces, fortresses and footpaths

Most visitors do the circuit in an hour: faces, castle, coffee, gone. That works if you’re driving the Jaén back-roads, but it short-changes the place. The castle ruins are a five-minute scramble above the houses; the masonry is roped off, yet you can still skirt the walls for a 360-degree view that takes in the olive empire to the south and the higher limestone wall of Mágina to the north. Pick a clear day and the profile of Cazorla shimmers on the horizon, 70 km away.

Walkers can stitch together two signed footpaths that leave from the upper plazas. The shorter loop (PR-A-241) drops into the Barranco de la Moraleda and returns via an old stone aqueduct—5 km, 200 m of ascent, good trainers enough if the ground is dry. The longer haul heads north-east on the GR-7-2 to the Puerto de Mágina, then forks for the summit of Pico Mágina (2,165 m), the province’s roof. Count on six hours return and carry more water than you think; the southern slope bakes even in April.

Oil, migas and the missing dinner

Belmez doesn’t do sophisticated. What it does well is fry breadcrumbs in olive oil until they resemble savoury granola. Migas—fluffier than the Castilian version—arrive topped with cubes of pork belly and a single fried egg whose yolk acts as sauce. Order a cerveza and the bar throws in a tapa of pipirrana: diced tomato, pepper and tuna sharp enough to make your tongue tingle. Vegetarians get the same plate minus the tuna if they look sufficiently desperate.

Serious olive oil pilgrims book a mid-morning visit to Almazara Valle de Mágina on the road out to Pegalajar. The mill runs November-January; outside those months you watch last year’s video and sniff your way through three vintages. The picual variety dominates here—grassy, peppery, leaving a catch in the throat that Italians mistake for rancidity. Ask for aceite suave if you prefer the mild stuff for dunking supermarket baguettes.

Remember the clock. Kitchens close at 16:00; only Bar Acosta keeps a sandwich hatch open until 20:00. If you arrive after five you will eat crisps and drink hot chocolate from a machine. Sunday morning is the exception: the same bar fries churros that arrive curled like sleeping snakes in a puddle of thick chocolate. British visitors have been known to schedule entire driving routes around them.

When to come, when to stay away

Spring is the sweet spot. By mid-April the olivar glows almost emerald; wild rosemary on the path edges releases its scent when sleeves brush past. Daytime temperatures sit in the low twenties, nights drop to 10 °C—perfect for walking without carrying a litre of sun-cream. October brings the olive harvest and the Fiesta de la Aceituna, a low-key weekend of tastings and tractor parades. Accommodation within 30 km books up for the August feria (19-21st); either reserve early or plan elsewhere—night-time temperatures barely drop below 24 °C and the village loudspeakers start at midnight.

Winter is quiet but not closed. Snow can dust the higher ridges and make the castle path slippery; the faces house still opens weekends, but you may have it to yourself. Summer walking is possible only at dawn. By 11:00 the limestone reflects heat like a pizza oven; the bar terraces retreat under awnings and even the village dogs seek shade under parked cars.

Parting shot

Belmez won’t keep you busy for a week. It will give you a story—about the house where concrete grows portraits, or the moment you rounded a castle wall and saw half of Jaén laid out below. Visit on the way to somewhere else, stay long enough to drink a coffee and walk the aqueduct loop. And if the woman with the comb is out shopping, don’t fret: the faces will still be there next time, staring up at whoever drops a euro in the tin.