San Nicolás del Puerto

The first thing you notice is the sound of water. Not the hiss of an espresso machine or the clack of suitcase wheels, but the proper rush of the Huéznar river squeezing between granite blocks laid three centuries ago so women could scrub shirts without carrying them uphill. San Nicolás del Puerto sits at 590 m, high enough for the air to feel rinsed, yet low enough for orange trees to survive in pocket-handkerchief gardens. It is the only village in Seville’s Sierra Norte whose centre is flat, a quirk that makes the 6-km Sendero del Agua pushchair-friendly and turns Saturday mornings into a parade of Seville families in walking boots that still have the tags on.

Leave the car by the old railway station – the line closed in 1987 and the ticket office is now an interpretation centre that actually interprets things: opening times, bird lists, the fact that the nearest cash machine is 26 km away. Walk south along the green-topped embankment and you drop into a tunnel of poplars, ash and the occasional oleander that thinks it’s still July. The path keeps the river on your right, the water milky with quartz silt, and every 200 m a wooden gate lets you reach the stone lip where children dam the current with sticks. British parents tend to relax here: the pools are shallow, the current lazy, and the only hazard is the temperature – even in April the water makes you remember Scotland.

What the houses don’t shout about

The village grid is two streets wide and four deep, enough for 599 permanent souls. Walls are whitewashed annually, but owners leave the base coat of terracotta showing through at shin height, a practical trick that hides the splash of river mud. Look up and you’ll spot the older houses by the height of their doorways: medieval thresholds sit a foot above today’s street level, the accumulated centuries of livestock manure and road grit turned to archaeology. The church clock strikes the half even when no one is listening, and swallows nest inside the bell-tower because the priest prefers the company of birds to the cost of wire mesh.

There are no souvenir shops. The mini-market stocks UHT milk, tinned mackerel and, mysteriously, one brand of Sri Lankan tea. If you need a fridge magnet you’ll have to walk to the blacksmith’s workshop at the top of Calle Real and ask him to cut one from an old horseshoe. He’ll do it for the price of a coffee, but only after he has finished shoeing the mare that belongs to the village vet, who also runs the weekend trail-riding operation.

Lunchtime politics

Kitchens shut at 16:00 sharp. Bar El Pilar will serve churros until the dough runs out, usually about 12:30, after which the owner wipes the counter and switches to fino sherry and plates of prawns that still have their eyes. Mesón El Roble opens earlier than anywhere else because the local hunting club breakfasts there; by 09:00 you’ll hear the scrape of chairs and the unmistakable thud of a 1980s幻灯片 projector being set up for the annual boar-count lecture. Tourists are welcome, but the waiter will ask whether you want morcilla before he tells you the Wi-Fi code – say no if black pudding isn’t your thing and you’ll get an extra slice of jamón instead.

Prices are still 1990s: a three-course menú del día costs €11 and includes wine that arrives in a glass bottle with no label. Vegetarians get a salad of lettuce, tomato and tinned asparagus; vegans should pack a sandwich. Orange wine, made by leaving the juice on the skins for three days, tastes like Lilt with a hangover – order it chilled and don’t ask for lemonade.

Up the hill, if you must

The castle ruin everyone mentions is not in the village. Drive 3 km on the A-432 towards Constantina, turn left at the roadside shrine shaped like a miniature chapel, and climb on foot another 20 minutes through rockrose and thyme. What remains is a single curtain wall and a view that stretches south until the olive groves merge with the Guadalquivir plain. On hazy days you can convince yourself the dark smudge is Seville cathedral; more likely it’s the smoke from the paper mill at Guillena. The path is unsigned after the first 500 m – download the track before you leave the river because EE drops to one bar and Three gives up entirely.

Better, stay low and keep walking. The Sendero del Agua loops back via an old railway tunnel lit by bats and the occasional LED strip powered by a solar panel someone nailed up in 2014. The total distance is 6.2 km; allow two hours with a biscuit stop and five minutes to read the English panel about the 19th-century mercury miners who used to wash their overalls in the same pools where toddlers now paddle.

Seasons, bluntly

March to mid-May is the sweet spot: daytime 22 °C, nights cool enough for the stone houses to release their store of winter cold, and the river high enough to make the waterfalls audible from the road. Wildflowers appear in sequence – cistus, lavender, then the poppies that turn the olive terraces into a Klimt canvas. October can be perfect too, but the first rains turn the clay paths slippery and you’ll need proper tread.

Summer is honest-to-goodness hot: 38 °C by 14:00, river down to a succession of green ponds, and only the church and the tunnel offer shade. Spanish families still come, queueing for the single spring-fed pool that stays below 20 °C, but British walkers tend to last until lunchtime before bolting for the coast. Winter is crisp, often 12 °C in sunlight, but the village lies in a frost pocket and nights drop to –2 °C. Hotels leave radiators off until you ask, and the one weekend in February when it snows the A-432 closes while the council finds a gritter.

Getting here, getting out

Fly to Seville with Ryanair or easyJet (2 h 25 min from Gatwick, Manchester or Bristol). Hire cars live in the multi-storey opposite arrivals; ignore the sat-nav’s attempt to send you via the toll road and stay on the A-66 until the Constantina turn-off. Total drive is 72 km, 55 minutes if you don’t get stuck behind an olive truck. Buses leave Seville’s Plaza de Armas at 09:00 on weekdays, arrive 11:15, and return at 17:30 – fine for a walking day but useless if you want dinner. A taxi booked through the village costs €80 one way; four travellers can split it cheaper than car hire for a weekend.

Leave before 18:00 on Sunday and you’ll hit Seville in time for tapas and a late train to the airport hotel. Stay an extra night and you’ll discover the only thing that moves after 21:00 is the nightjar that sings from the poplar by the old station. That, and the river, still talking to the stones.