Castillo de Locubín

The morning bell strikes nine and the village loudspeaker crackles into life. Someone reads out the day's grain prices, the funeral notices, and—because it's Tuesday—a reminder that the recycling lorry will reach the upper calles after siesta. This is Castillo de Locubín: population 5,000, altitude 706 m, and still equipped with the municipal megaphone most Spanish towns abandoned in the 1980s. The system is oddly comforting; it tells you at once that daily life here proceeds on its own terms and that nobody is in much of a hurry.

The castle that named the place

A five-minute haul up stone slabs brings you to the ruined fortress that crowned this ridge long before the loudspeaker arrived. Only fragments of the Moorish walls survive, but the platform they enclose delivers a 200-degree sweep of olive trees, each terrace sharpened by the high-altitude light. On clear winter days the Sierra Nevada gleams 80 km away; in July the view shimmers like hot glass. There are no ticket barriers, no interpretation boards, and the single hazard is the wind that sneaks through the battlements and tries to remove your hat. Go early: by 11 a.m. the stone radiates heat back at you, and the only shade is the squat Renaissance chapel tucked into one corner.

Below the castle the medieval web of alleys funnels you towards the Plaza de San Pedro, a pocket-sized square paved in river pebbles that have been polished by centuries of dragging chair legs. The church façade is a hybrid: late-Gothic arches wearing a 1590s Renaissance coat. Inside, a clutch of baroque retablos glitters with guilt-inducing saints; outside, old men occupy the bench beneath the orange tree and argue about rainfall records. They will break off to answer questions, though English is patchy. A smile and a simple "¿Cuántos años tiene este árbol?" works better than phrase-book flourishes.

Walking among billion-dollar trees

The olive sea that laps the village is not scenery; it is the local economy, and every third building is a small cooperative that turns fruit into oil between October and February. One cooperative, Nuestra Señora de la Aurora on Calle Ancha, opens its pressing room to visitors if you ring the bell first. Tours are free, last twenty minutes, and end with bread sticks dunked in oil so fresh it bites the back of your throat. The guide will tell you that the average age of an olive tree around here is 180 years; what he omits is that a single mature tree can be worth £8,000, so the valley you admired from the castle is essentially a low-risk bank vault with leaves.

For those who prefer moving to tasting, three way-marked trails start from the cemetery gate on the north edge of town. The easiest, the 4 km Cerros del Castillo loop, climbs 150 m through holm oaks and emerges on a fire road that smells of thyme and diesel from the occasional quad bike. The longest, the 12 km Ruta de los Molinos, drops into the Arroyo Salado gorge to reach three ruined watermills, then climbs back out past farmhouses where dogs announce your progress. Neither path is arduous, but walking shoes are advisable: after rain the limestone flags turn slick as soap and the village drains overflow across the streets in theatrical bursts.

What to eat when the church bell strikes two

Restaurants observe rural hours: lunch 13:30–16:00, dinner after 20:30, closed Monday or Tuesday on a rotating whim. On the square, Mesón la Plaza serves gazpacho serrano (the thick stew version, not the cold tomato soup Brits expect) and andrajos—irregular strips of pasta cooked with wild rabbit and red pepper. Expect to pay €12 for a main, €2 for a caña of beer. If you prefer something that won't alarm younger travellers, Bar la Aurora does a respectable grilled entrecôte with chips and a bowl of grated tomato for €9. Vegetarians can cobble together a meal from spinach sautéed with pine nuts and the local goats' cheese, but vegans will struggle unless they phone ahead.

Cherries, not olives, dominate the sweet end. The first week of June brings the Feria de la Cereza: stalls line the upper streets selling cherry liqueur, cherry marmalade, and paper cups of cherry gazpacho (served iced, no spice, an easy sell to children). Buy a 200 ml bottle of the liqueur for €5; it fits into hand luggage and tastes like alcoholic Ribena.

Getting there, staying there, leaving again

Granada airport is 66 km away, a 50-minute dash down the A-44. Málaga is doable at 158 km, but the final 40 km across the mountains adds petrol and patience. Car hire is non-negotiable: the village sits 2 km off the N-432, and the weekday bus from Jaén arrives with the randomness of a Christmas card from someone you last saw in 1997.

Accommodation is mostly self-catering townhouses whose roofs have been converted into fly-wire terraces. Standard rate is €90 a night for a two-bedroom patio house with plunge pool; check that the owner has replaced the antique electricity meter or you will spend your holiday resetting the fuse box every time the kettle meets the toaster. British buyers have snapped up several bargains, but surveyors warn about subsidence caused by shifting clay; what looks rustic may in fact be sliding downhill at 2 mm a year. Rent before you contemplate buying.

The quiet season and the noisy one

Spring and autumn are the sensible months. In May the night temperature drops to 12 °C, perfect for sleeping under a blanket of frogs croaking in the reservoir below town. October brings the olive harvest: tractors towing plastic bins growl through the streets at dawn, and the air smells of crushed leaves and diesel—an acquired perfume. Summer is fierce: 35 °C by noon, siesta enforced by the sun, and only the municipal pool (open July–August, €2 entry) offers relief. Winter can be surprisingly sharp; at 706 m the odd morning sees snow on the castle stones, and the almond trees bloom suddenly in February, giving photographers a week of pink snow before the petals blow away.

Leave on a Thursday and you will catch the travelling market in the car park behind the health centre: one greengrocer, one haberdasher, one van hawking cheap bras. It is not picturesque, but it is real, and the lettuce you buy there will still have soil on its roots—something to remember when you are back in the supermarket queue at home, staring at plastic-wrapped uniformity and wondering how loud the village loudspeaker would have to be to reach Britain.