Villamalea

A village that still clocks on with the fields

At 740 m above sea level, Villamalea sits high enough for the wind to carry the smell of thyme one minute and freshly turned soil the next. Dawn in April can be 6 °C; by noon it’s 24 °C and you’re peeling off layers on the wheat track that skirts the cemetery. This is Castilla-La Mancha without the coach-park crowds: 4,000 inhabitants, one working wine co-operative, and streets that empty sharply after the 22:00 church bells. Foreign number plates are rare enough that locals still glance twice.

The built town won’t detain you long. Houses are whitewashed, roofs are terracotta, shutters are green. The 16th-century church of San Pedro Apóstol squats at the top of the slight rise; its bell tower doubles as the mobile-phone mast. What keeps people here is the land itself – 360° of vines, almond and cereal that fade from bright kite-green in March to biscuit brown by July. Stand on the Paseo de la Constitución and you can watch the season change in real time.

Walking into a different climate zone

The surprise lies 3 km south-east. A signposted footpath, PR-AB 40, drops from the plateau into the Cañada de la Huérguina, a side chasm of the larger Cabriel river system. Within twenty minutes the temperature falls five degrees. Reeds replace wheat, poplars replace olives, and the path squeezes between basalt walls dripping with maidenhair ferns. British visitors on TripAdvisor call it “a mini-jungle in dusty La Mancha”; the locals simply call it the Cueva de los Ángeles walk, though the cave itself is more a shallow grotto with swallow nests than a cavern.

The full circuit is 8 km and takes two-and-a-half hours, but the best bit is the first 4 km out-and-back to the rock pools. Go early: by 11:00 the sun clears the rim and shade disappears. Sign-posting is patchy – download the GPX before you leave town. After heavy rain the gorge fills with a deafening chorus of frogs; in August the pools shrink to puddles and you’ll share them only with dragonflies.

If you want a longer hike, continue south to the Los Cárceles swimming holes (another 5 km). The water is chest-deep and clean enough to see your feet, but the riverbed is brutally stony – cheap water shoes save bruised soles.

Wine that costs less than the bottle

Villamalea’s co-operative winery, built in 1957, looks like a concrete grain silo dropped beside the railway line. Inside, stainless-steel tanks hold 2.5 million litres of Tempranillo and Airén. There are no polished oak barrels or gift-shop fridge magnets; this is bulk production for the Madrid market. Still, the staff will sell you a litre of last year’s red for €3.50 if you bring your own bottle, or €5 if you need one of theirs. The wine is light, gluggable, and tastes faintly of cherries and railway dust – perfect picnic gear.

Several families keep tiny private bodegas dug into their courtyard floors. Knock politely and you may be handed a glass of russet-coloured mistela, a sweet fortified wine that disappears at Christmas and reappears at Easter. English is scarce; pointing at the barrel and saying “¡un poco, por favor!” usually works.

When to come, and when to stay away

April–May and late September–October are the comfortable months. Daytime peaks sit around 22 °C, nights cool to 10 °C, and the wheat or vine rows glow gold-green. Spring brings storks on the telegraph poles; autumn brings mushroom hunters to the pine scraps on the northern ridge.

July and August are fierce. Temperatures touch 38 °C by 15:00, the wind feels like a hair-dryer, and the village retreats indoors for siesta. Bars reopen at 20:00, but everything closes again by 23:00 unless the fiesta committee has laid on outdoor bingo. If you must come in midsummer, walk at sunrise and plan a long lunch in an air-conditioned bar – Bar Sol on Plaza de España has cold Cruzcampo on tap and a television permanently tuned to cycling.

Winter is bright but bitter. Night frosts are common; snow every couple of years blocks the road to Motilla del Palancar for a morning. The upside is silence: you’ll have the gorge trail to yourself and the wine tastes better when there’s ice on the windscreen.

Eating without the theatrics

Restaurant El Figón, opposite the health centre, serves a weekday menú del día for €14. Expect a bowl of vegetable soup, a plate of grilled lamb cutlets with chips, and a quarter-bottle of the co-op red. Vegetarians can swap for a Spanish tortilla the size of a frisbee. Locals eat at 14:30 sharp; turn up after 15:30 and the kitchen is mopped.

Sunday morning is churros day at Café Bar Sol. They arrive curled like greasy telephone cords, with a cup of thick chocolate for dunking – the closest Villamalea gets to a full English. If you need supplies for walking, stock up in Albacete beforehand: the village’s only supermarket closes at 14:00 and all day Sunday.

Getting here, cash, and other practical grit

There is no railway station. From Alicante or Valencia airports it’s 90 minutes on the A-31 followed by 25 minutes on the CM-412. Public transport is the morning bus to Albacete (07:15 outbound, 17:00 return) – useless for a day trip. Petrol is cheaper at the Repsol on the bypass than on the motorway, and the station at La Roda 20 km west has 24-hour pumps.

Bring cash. The lone Santander cash machine on Calle San Quílez is often empty at weekends; the nearest reliable ATM is inside the Carrefour in Motilla del Palancar, 12 km away. Cards are accepted in El Figón and the supermarket, but not in the wine co-op or the bakery.

Mobile coverage is fine on the plateau but dies halfway down the gorge – download offline maps. There is no tourist office; the town hall foyer has a faded map tacked to the wall. Accommodation is limited to two guesthouses (around €45 a night) and the odd Airbnb room above a bar; book ahead during fiestas.

Fiestas that shake the quiet

For four days around 29 June the village triples in size. San Pedro’s feast brings marching bands, a livestock fair, and a foam party in the polideportivo that starts at midnight and ends when the generator runs out of diesel. Fireworks echo off the grain silos; the church bell rings non-stop. If you crave sleep, stay in Albacete and drive in for the morning procession – the streets are strewn with rosemary and the statue of Saint Peter is carried at shoulder height through a tunnel of fireworks.

Mid-August hosts the “feria de verano”, a smaller reunion for emigrants. The programme is basically bull-running at 07:00, paella for 2,000 people at 14:00, and open-air dancing until 05:00. British visitors sometimes blanch at the bull bit; you can skip it and turn up for the communal supper – buy a €5 ticket from the kiosk on the square.

The honest verdict

Villamalea will never compete with Toledo’s cathedrals or Valencia’s paella credentials. It offers instead a slice of working Castilla-La Mancha where the harvest still dictates the rhythm and the bar owner remembers how you like your coffee. Come for the river gorge walk and the €3 wine, not for souvenir shops or nightlife. Leave before midday in July, bring cash, and pack a Spanish phrasebook – or at least the offline Google Translate file. Do that, and the village repays with a quiet, unfiltered version of Spain that the motorway whisked past long ago.