Cijuela

The Vega, Flat Out

The A-92 slips past at 120 km/h, but anyone who takes exit 230 discovers a different speed limit altogether. Cijuela sits 540 m above sea level yet feels level with the horizon; irrigation channels divide the plain into neat rectangles of spinach, beans and early strawberries. Sierra Nevada’s white ridges hover thirty kilometres away like a painted backdrop, close enough to measure the seasons—first snow, first thaw, first day the melt-water reaches the acequias that still water the plots.

Three thousand-odd people live here, enough to support three bakeries, two pharmacies and a single cash machine that sometimes runs dry on market day. Tuesday morning is when the village doubles in size: white vans from Granada province sell melons and socks, neighbours swap cuttings of mint, and the bar on Plaza del Ayuntamiento serves coffee faster than anywhere else in the Vega. Arrive after eleven and you’ll circle the grid of low houses twice before squeezing onto a verge; arrive earlier and you can watch the place wake up with the sun still low enough to cast kilometre-long shadows across the fields.

A Church, a Square, and Everything Between

Cijuela has no ticketed monuments, no audio guides, no coach park. The 16th-century church of San Sebastián stands in the geographical centre simply because that was the safest place to store the harvest tithe. Its tower is the tallest thing for miles; swallows use the bell openings as a summer apartment block and the sound of their wings echoes inside like soft castanets. Step through the south door at any hour except siesta and you’ll probably find the sacristan polishing brass; he’ll point out the gilded 18th-century retablo without asking for a euro, then return to his duster.

From the church door every street eventually reaches the same perimeter: fields. Houses are one or two storeys, whitewash over brick, iron grilles painted green or oxblood. Patios hide behind heavy doors, but geraniums spill over the tops of walls and the smell of wood-smoke drifts out in winter when temperatures drop to single figures. Walk three minutes in any direction and the pavement ends; tyres of irrigators the size of lorries sit beside irrigation gates marked with faded numbers that still determine whose turn it is to flood which plot. The system was devised by Moorish engineers and perfected by people who have never heard the word “drought” used lightly.

Lunch at Field Level

There are two restaurants and one venta within the village boundary. El Molino occupies a former olive mill; the millstone now serves as a pedestal for plates of migas—fried breadcrumbs strewn with garlic, grapes and scraps of pork that melt into smoky sweetness. Order choto al ajillo if you want kid goat slow-stewed until it resembles the best Lancashire hotpot, only sharper with vinegar and bay. House wine arrives in a plain glass bottle, produced by the Vega co-op for €2.50 a litre; it’s light enough to drink at lunch and still walk the lanes afterwards without a nap.

Vegetarians do better asking for what the kitchen can leave out rather than scanning for a “V” symbol. Winter potaje blends beans, spinach and cumin; summer gazpacho tastes of tomato that was on the plant yesterday. Puddings are baked on site—try a pionono, a cinnamon-dusted spiral of cream and sponge invented in nearby Santa Fe to commemorate Columbus’s departure; the pastry chef here keeps the recipe closer to home, using local honey instead of syrup so the sweetness lingers like warm heather.

Flat Roads, Big Sky

Cijuela is a starting point rather than a destination. Pick up theVia Verde del Acequia, a farm track turned cycle path that follows an irrigation channel seven kilometres to the village of Vegas del Genil. The surface is rolled earth, fine for hybrids, impossible for skinny road tyres. You’ll share it with tractors towing tanks of fertiliser, retired men walking small dogs, and the occasional Londoner who hired a bike in Granada and is discovering what “headwind” means on the plains. Turn back at sunset and Sierra Nevada glows pink behind you, the snow turning the same colour as the almond blossom in late February.

Serious walkers can string together lanes south towards the marshy mouth of the Genil river, where glossy ibis feed among the reeds and the only sound is the slap of irrigation water hitting clay. If 540 m feels too low, drive twenty minutes to Beas de Granada and climb 1,000 m on a circular path that ends with a view north across the whole Vega—green geometry fading into the blue of distant mountains. In April the contrast between irrigated land and parched hillside is sharp enough to photograph from one spot.

When to Turn Up, When to Leave

Spring is the practical choice: days lengthen to 11 hours before the heat arrives, acequias run full, and Tuesday market smells of coriander and fresh peas. By mid-May the Cruces de Mayo bring temporary bars and sound systems to three street corners; locals apologise for the noise then dance until the Guardia Civil clock strikes three. Autumn works too—mornings are misty, afternoons warm enough for shirtsleeves, and the smell of crushed grapes drifts from the cooperative press in nearby Villanueva.

July and August are for lizards and insomniacs. Midday temperatures exceed 40 °C; farmers start work at dawn and retreat by ten. Visitors should copy them. Park under a mulberry, order a caña, and read a book until the shadow of the church reaches the bar terrace. Nights cool to 22 °C, perfect for late churros dipped in chocolate at the 24-hour kiosk on the main road—but expect to drive back to Granada if you want nightlife beyond a bottle of tinto shared with the owner’s cousins.

Winter is quiet, occasionally bleak. The Vega turns khaki, tractors kick up dust that hangs like smog, and the wind that scours the plain can make 10 °C feel like Manchester in February. Still, the light is crystalline, Sierra Nevada stands out like cut glass, and you’ll have the lanes to yourself apart from a retired English couple who bought an olive grove and now produce enough oil to flood their former semi in Surrey.

The Honest Exit

Cijuela will not change your life. You will not tick off Unesco sites or fill memory cards with selfies. What you might do is remember how Spain smelled before tourism: wood-smoke, damp earth, diesel from a distant tractor, orange blossom carried on an irrigation breeze. Drive away mid-afternoon and the village shrinks in the mirror until only the church tower remains, a stone finger pointing at the snow-line. Ten minutes later the motorway sign reads “Granada 15 km”, but the Vega keeps its own mileage—measured in irrigation turns, harvest weeks, and the slow rotation of crops that will outlast every passing car.