Priego de Córdoba

The first thing you notice is the altitude. At 652 m the air is thinner than on the Costa, and the Sierra Subbética rises like a wrinkled tablecloth around you. Then comes the smell: warm stone, orange blossom and, everywhere, olive oil so fresh it makes supermarket versions taste like candle wax. Priego de Córdoba sits halfway between Granada and Córdoba, 22,000 souls wrapped in a maze of whitewashed lanes that were laid out for donkeys, not diesel.

British arrivals usually land at Málaga – year-round flights, two-hour drive up the A-45 then a sudden left into the mountains. Granada airport is closer (70 min) but its UK routes are seasonal; Seville works if you don’t mind motorways that feel like Surrey on a bank holiday. Car hire is almost compulsory: the daily bus from Córdoba takes two hours and leaves you at the foot of a hill that was designed for calves, not suitcases.

Where the water still runs

Priego’s fortune has always been liquid. Snowmelt from the Sierras feeds more than 100 public fountains, and the locals still fill plastic carboys rather than buy bottled. Follow the sound of trickling water and you’ll reach the Fuente del Rey, a three-tiered Renaissance confection of spitting lions and stone masks. Tour coaches pause here just long enough for a selfie, then leave the plaza to the pigeons and the odd British couple who’ve read about the €8 tourist pass. Buy the pass at the tiny office on Calle del Rio; it unlocks three churches, two museums and the castle for roughly half the individual price.

Above the fountains the Barrio de la Villa tumbles uphill like spilled sugar cubes. The streets are barely shoulder-wide, cobbled with river pebbles polished to an ice-rink finish. Wear trainers, not espadrilles; the Moors who planned this quarter weren’t thinking of Health & Safety. Halfway up, a wrought-iron balcony juts out – the Balcón del Adarve – and suddenly the province unfurls below you: a green-and-silver patchwork of olive groves that stretches to the horizon. On clear winter days you can pick out the white flash of Antequera’s limestone crags 60 km away. British visitors tend to linger here longer than they expect, phones forgotten, coats flapping in the breeze that always seems to rise at sunset.

Churches that demand a neck-craning

Priego doesn’t do understated. The Iglesia de la Asunción, a block back from the main shopping street, is a riot of Baroque gold leaf and twisting columns. Step inside and your eyes need a moment to adjust; the Capilla del Sagrario glitters like the inside of a jewellery box. Guides love to point out that the chapel’s architect had never seen a straight line he liked. A five-minute walk east, the tower of San Pedro pokes above the roofs – its brickwork is pure Mudéjar, a leftover from the 13th-century craftsmen who stayed on after the Reconquista. Climb the castle keep beside it (narrow spiral, no lift) and you’ll understand why the Tourist Board calls Priego “the Baroque heart of inland Andalucía”. The castle itself is more vantage point than fortress these days; only one wall remains, but the 360-degree payoff compensates.

Come mid-week outside fiesta time and you’ll have these views almost to yourself. Easter is another story. Priego’s Semana Santa is classified as National Tourist Interest – processions squeeze through streets barely three metres wide, brass bands rebound off stone, and every balcony sprouts red geraniums in terracotta pots. Hotel rooms triple in price and the underground car park under Paseo de Colombia fills by 10 a.m. If you hate crowds, avoid the week before Easter and the last weekend of April when the Romería de la Virgen de la Cabeza turns the countryside into a sea of tents and tethered horses.

Olives for breakfast, oil for pudding

Food here is local first, Instagram second. Breakfast means pan con aceite: toasted farmhouse loaf rubbed with tomato, drizzled with emerald-green extra-virgin and a pinch of salt. Even children who wrinkle their noses at “salad dressing” wolf it down. Lunch might be flamenquín – pork loin wrapped in jamón, bread-crumbed and fried until the coating shatters. Vegetarians aren’t forgotten: berenjenas con miel (aubergine chips drizzled with molasses) tastes like sweet-and-sour heaven and appears on every tapas list. Pudding is where the convents take over. Pestiños, honey-coated fritters scented with sesame, appear in February; torrijas, Spain’s answer to bread-and-butter pudding, soak up sherry and cinnamon during Easter week. Track them down at Dulces de Convento on Calle Real – ring the bell, wait for the nun behind the grille, and pay cash into the revolving wooden turntable.

If you’d rather cook, the Friday morning market spreads across Plaza de Andalucía. Stallholders will decant half a litre of last week’s harvest into old water bottles for €3.50. Back home you’ll curse every supermarket oil you’ve ever bought.

Walking it off

Priego is built on a ridge, so every stroll ends with a calf-stretch. The signed Ruta de las Fuentes ambles 6 km through olive groves to the Fuente de Piedra, a natural spring where villagers still wash rugs on feast days. For something steeper, the path to Sierra de Priego climbs 400 m in the first hour; the reward is a picnic spot overlooking a sea of 200-year-old trees. Take water – the altitude dehydrates faster than you think – and avoid July/August when the thermometer kisses 40 °C and the olive leaves glint like knives. Spring and late September are perfect: wild thyme scents the air and the walk ends in time for a cold beer on Plaza de la Constitución.

Should your legs refuse, Domingo’s canary-yellow tuk-tuk leaves the square on the hour. The open-sided buggy squeezes through alleyways no tour coach could dream of, and Domingo will switch to English if asked. A 45-minute loop costs €7 and includes a stop at the Balcón so you can photograph the view without the uphill slog.

The practical bit

Sleep in the old town if you can. Hotel Las Rosas occupies a 17th-century mansion on Calle del Rio; rooms open onto a tiled courtyard where swallows nest in the eaves. Doubles from €75 including garage parking – essential because the public underground fills quickly. Budget option: Hostal-Restaurante San Francisco, €45 a night opposite the market, clean, no lift. Both places will store your cases if you fancy a last-minute walk before the airport run.

Evenings start late. Locals linger over coffee until 11 p.m.; the British habit of hunting for dinner at 7 p.m. marks you out immediately. Adjust, and you’ll find the streets humming with gossip under jasmine-scented air. Crime is almost non-existent – lone women walk home at 2 a.m. without a second thought – but the cobbles are treacherous after rain. Heels are a liability; flat soles are a kindness.

Heading home

Priego won’t hand you blockbuster sights every ten metres. What it offers instead is continuity: widows still scrub doorsteps, bakers arrive at 4 a.m., and the night watchman’s keys clank just after midnight as he locks the church. If you want flamenco tablaos and all-night clubs, stick to Seville. If you fancy a place where the bar owner remembers your name and the olive oil comes with a story, aim the hire car uphill. Come on a Tuesday in late October, when the sun is warm but the light is thin, and you’ll leave wondering why anyone still queues for the coast.