Alcorisa

The first thing you notice is the noise. Not traffic, not chatter, but a low, rolling thunder that seems to come from the hills themselves. It’s Holy Week in Alcorisa and half the town is out in the street, thumping bass drums slung from red sashes, beating out a rhythm that rattles windowpanes and sets ribcages vibrating. By midnight the procession has climbed the stony path to Mount Calvary; from the ridge you can see the village lights spread below like a reflection of the stars, and the sound carries for miles across the empty cereal plain.

At 632 m above sea level, Alcorisa sits where the Iberian System begins to shrug itself upwards from the flat, ochre mesas of Bajo Aragón. The difference is sudden: one minute you’re on the N-420 counting olive groves, the next you’re dropping through hair-pin bends into a ravine of pine and rosemary. The air smells of resin rather than blossom, and even in July evenings drop to 20 °C – a relief if you’ve just fled the coast’s humidity.

A town that refuses to be a museum

Guidebooks like their villages tidy; Alcorisa prefers workable. The tractor depot is two streets from the 16th-century church, and the Saturday market blocks the road rather than posing for photographs. Industry—olive-oil bottling, a small nut-packaging plant—keeps the place alive, which means bars still charge €1.60 for a caña and nobody tries to sell you fridge magnets shaped like bulls.

Start in Plaza de España, a rectangle of brick arcades and forged-iron balconies that feels more Zaragoza miniature than tourist postcard. Under the colonnades, elderly men play dominoes with the urgency of a cup final while the barman slides across saucers of olives slick with local D.O. Bajo Aragón oil. Order a coffee and you’ll probably get change from a euro; ask for milk and they’ll query whether you want it in a glass or in your caffeine.

The parish church of Santa María la Mayor broods over the square’s north side. It’s pure Aragonese Renaissance—heavy stone, restrained decoration, a tower you can spot from 10 km away. Inside, the altarpiece is gilded enough to need sunglasses, but the real curiosity is the side chapel where a 14th-century wooden Virgin carries a silver lamp that sailors once looted from Gibraltar. No ropes, no entry fee, just a handwritten sign requesting silence.

Walking upwards

Heat dictates timetable here. By 11 a.m. in August the cobbles shimmer, so sensible folk head uphill. The Calvario path starts behind the ermita of San Roque and zig-zags 1.2 km through holm-oak and kermes oak to a rocky bluff. Sixteen stone Stations of the Cross—weathered almost faceless—line the route; wild goats watch from the thicket, unimpressed. At the summit a wrought-iron cross and a simple bench give a 360-degree payoff: west across the wrinkled sierra, east over the geometric squares of cereal fields that fade into haze.

If you prefer horizontal miles to vertical ones, a web of farm tracks heads south towards the River Guadalope. None are strenuous; gradients top out at 200 m. Spring is best—green wheat waving like the sea, poppies splashing scarlet between the rows. Autumn smells of thyme and damp earth, and mushroom hunters prowl the pine plantations with wicker baskets. (Locals advise sticking to rovellons and senderuelas; anything white and bulbous is best left to the coroner.)

Drums, trumpets and a sheep on a spit

Alcorisa festivals are participatory, not performative. Easter’s drum route—part of the Ruta del Tambor y el Bombo—starts at dusk on Good Friday. Several thousand costaleros converge, creating a wall of sound best experienced from the middle of the pack; ear-plugs are not ironic, they’re survival. At 3 a.m. the procession ends in the open-air amphitheatre where a 300-strong choir launches into the “Miserere”. Even agnostics admit the goose-bumps.

August belongs to San Roque. The town divides into peñas—social clubs with names like “Los Chupetes” and “Las Ratas”—each mounting a barrack of pine branches in the square. Inside, whole lamb (ternasco) turns on spits fashioned from old axles; outside, children lob water balloons at passing cars. Fireworks at midnight shake dust from the rafters, and the baker reopens at 5 a.m. to serve brandy-laced coffee to anyone still upright.

September’s Virgen de los Pueyos is quieter: a romería up the neighbouring hill, mass in the open, and communal paella eaten from paper plates while someone’s uncle strums a twelve-string. Visitors are handed a fork and expected to muck in; refusal is taken as personal insult.

What lands on the plate

Aragón does robust rather than refined. Ternasco de Aragón, milk-fed lamb under 90 days old, arrives in chunks big enough to reconstruct the animal. The flavour is mild—think Welsh spring lamb with more sun and less mint. Migas pastoriles turn yesterday’s bread into comfort food: crumbs fried in olive oil with garlic, grapes and streaky bacon. Ask for the vegetarian version and you’ll get crumbs, grapes and a shrug.

Oil is everything. Locals speak of “primera flor” the way Scots discuss single malts; the fetén brand, bottled in the industrial estate on the edge of town, sells for €7 a litre from the factory gate. Splash it on toast with a pinch of salt and you’ll understand why butter never caught on here. To finish, pastissets—flaky half-moons stuffed with peach or apricot—pair well with a glass of garnacha tinta that costs €2.50 and drinks like chilled Beaujolais.

Beds, bolts and bad mobile signal

Alcorisa keeps accommodation simple: one three-star hostal above a bakery, two dozen village houses on Airbnb, and a pilgrim albergue run by the confraternity of St James. Prices hover around €45 for a double, €12 for a dorm bed. Easter week trebles everything; if you’ve left it late, Alcañiz (15 min by car) has chain hotels and free parking.

There is no railway. Fly into Zaragoza or Reus, collect a hire car, and allow 90 minutes on generally empty A-roads. The final 20 km twist through sierra passes that can collect snow in March—pack chains if you’re travelling before Easter. Once arrived, leave the car; the historic core is a five-minute square.

Shops observe the classic siesta (14:00-17:00). Restaurants follow suit, so lunch before 14:00 or nibble crisps until 20:30. Cards are accepted grudgingly; the nearest fee-free cash machine sits beside Alcañiz’s medieval market. English is scarce—download an offline dictionary, practise your “buenas tardes” and prepare for enthusiastic sign language.

When to come, when to stay away

Late March to mid-May gives wild-flowers and bearable temperatures (18-24 °C). Mornings can be nippy, so bring a fleece for the Calvario. October repeats the trick, adding fungus and wine-ferment smells. July and August are fierce—35 °C in the shade, zero shade on the ridge—but fiestas compensate if you can handle sleepless nights. Mid-winter is bright, crisp and often deserted; some years snow cuts the road for a day or two, turning the village into an accidental retreat.

Last orders

Alcorisa will not change your life. It offers no Michelin stars, no boutique caves, no pool parties. What it does offer is the Spain that guidebooks keep insisting has disappeared: a place where the baker remembers how you take your coffee, where teenagers still join the drum procession without Instagram sponsorship, where you can walk into the hills at dawn and hear nothing but goat bells. Come for the drums, stay for the oil, leave before the Monday shutters roll down—and you’ll carry that bass-line thump in your chest long after the aeroplane levels off.