Casariche

The Saturday morning market hall smells of payoyo goat cheese and freshly ground coffee. By 11am, locals queue at the only stall that vacuum-packs for British hand luggage, while outside, tractors crawl past with trailers of olives bound for the cooperative mill. This is Casariche at its busiest – and it's still quieter than a Tesco Express on a Tuesday evening.

Perched 296 metres above sea level on a limestone ridge, Casariche surveys a silver-green ocean of olive trees that stretches thirty kilometres in every direction. The village itself houses barely 5,000 souls, meaning each resident theoretically commands their own small grove. Unlike the manicured hill towns of eastern Andalucía, this is working countryside where agricultural diesel mingles with orange blossom, and the church bell still marks the fieldworkers' day.

Roman Footprints and Olive Oil

Two thousand years ago, this ridge caught Caesar's eye for the same reason – visibility across the Guadalquivir valley. The ruins of Ventippo lie twenty minutes' walk north of the modern centre, though you'd be forgiven for missing them. What remains is essentially a rocky field with scattered foundation stones and an information board so faded it could double as a modern-art installation. The battle fought here in 45 BC changed Roman Spain; today it changes very little for the visitor beyond providing a decent picnic spot with aerial views of the groves.

More engaging is the living industry those Romans kick-started. From November to January, the Cooperativa Nuestra Señora de la Sierra welcomes observers to watch olives become luminous green oil. Tours run most Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10am, cost €8, and include a thimble-sized tasting that will ruin British supermarket oil forever. Book through the tourist office tucked beside the town hall – the same woman who sells the tickets also prints them, so arrive before midday or accept that mañana might mean next week.

Streets That Remember

Casariche's centre follows the usual Andalusian blueprint – whitewashed cubes, iron balconies, a central church – yet avoids the Disney polish infecting better-known pueblos. House paint flakes in pastry-sized curls, revealing terracotta brick beneath. Grand 19th-century doorways open straight onto living rooms where grandparents watch quiz shows at full volume. Nobody's restored anything to within an inch of its life because nobody needed impressing.

The Iglesia de la Encarnación dominates Plaza de España with its square brick tower, useful for orientation when the warren of lanes disorientates. Inside, the retablo mayor glitters with Andalusian baroque excess, though the real attraction is sociological: local men still gather in the nave at 6pm to swap fertiliser prices before evening mass. Photography is tolerated; flash photography invites a glare that could strip paint faster than the sun.

Wander south along Calle Nueva and the houses shrink, lanes narrow, until you emerge onto the mirador beside the old mill. From here the groves ripple like corrugated iron, broken only by the occasional farmhouse whose solar panels glint like misplaced mirrors. British visitors expecting dramatic sierra scenery sometimes feel underwhelmed – the beauty here is mathematical, a tessellation of 300,000 trees, rather than postcard photogenic.

Eating on Agricultural Time

Mealtimes obey the harvest, not the holidaymaker. Breakfast happens at 7am with workers who've already been pruning for two hours; by 2pm the entire village enters hibernation until 6pm sharp. Plan accordingly – even the pharmacy pulls down its shutter. The handful of bars around Plaza Andalucía will, however, serve coffee and tostada to anyone who looks capable of operating a spoon.

When hunger strikes at proper Spanish hours, Mesón los Olivos delivers the classics without tourist mark-ups. Encebollado de bacalao arrives as mild cod buried under sweet onions stewed in white wine, perfect for children who baulk at spice. Maimones soup tastes essentially like British chicken broth that's taken a gap year in Spain – garlic, ham shards, and optional poached egg. A full lunch menu costs €12 and includes a quarter-litre of house wine you won't find on export lists.

For self-caterers, the Dia supermarket on Avenida de Andalucía stocks everything except fresh fish. The local cheese counter, open Thursday to Saturday, sells payoyo rolled in rosemary, small enough to squeeze between duty-free gin bottles. Olive oil, inevitably, comes in five-litre cans; decant into a wine bottle for easier packing.

Walking Among the Trees

The signed Sendero de la Campana circles three kilometres through the groves, passing an abandoned stone hut once used by shepherds overnighting between summer and winter pastures. Download the GPX beforehand – way-marking consists of occasional yellow dashes painted on tree trunks, invisible without the Andalusian sun at the correct angle. Early morning brings sightings of hoopoes and the distant thud of olive-harvesting machines that shake entire trees in seconds.

Serious hikers sometimes complain the terrain is too gentle; the compensation is sensory. Wild thyme releases scent underfoot, while the metallic click of agricultural sprinklers provides a polyrhythm against birdsong. Take water – shade exists only where tractors park. The loop delivers you back beside the municipal swimming pool, open July to mid-September and free to non-residents after 4pm, a discovery that delights overheated offspring.

When the Village Lets Its Hair Down

Casariche's calendar revolves around agriculture and religion, sometimes both simultaneously. The Romería de San Marcos, late April, sees tractors decorated with crepe paper accompany the saint's statue to a country chapel, followed by an open-air paella feeding 3,000 people. Tourists are welcomed but not catered to – bring your own chair and accept that the beer queue operates on acquaintance rather than etiquette.

Late July's Feria de Santiago transforms the fairground outside the village into a neon explosion of ferris wheels and sherry stalls. Accommodation within Casariche sells out months ahead; neighbouring Estepa offers the nearest hotel with a pool, ten minutes' drive east. British families sometimes base themselves here, using Casariche as a low-cost alternative to the coastal crowds, though teenagers may find the nightlife ends before their parents flag.

Getting There, Getting Cash, Getting Out

Casariche sits exactly halfway between Seville and Málaga on the A-92, making it an obvious pit stop for motorists switching provinces. The village bypass means you must turn off deliberately – blink at 120kph and the exit vanishes. Public transport exists but requires saintly patience: two daily buses from Seville's Plaza de Armas, timed for shoppers rather than sightseers, return at 5pm sharp.

Cash remains king. Both ATMs huddle beside the petrol station on the bypass; neither accepts fee-free UK cards and both empty during fiestas when Seville weekenders arrive. Fill pockets before exploring. Parking, mercifully, is free everywhere except the market square on Saturday morning, where traffic wardens appear with religious dedication.

Leave with olive oil in hold luggage and payoyo cheese in hand; export regulations allow both. The village won't mind your departure – it has trees to tend, olives to pick, and centuries of practice at watching visitors drift back to the coast.