Férez

The road leaves the CM-412, crosses an invisible line on the map, and begins to climb. Six kilometres of tight hairpins, stone retaining walls and sudden drops later, Férez appears: a slab of pale houses anchored to a ridge at 689 metres, looking south-east over olive terraces that fade into the pines of the Sierra del Segura. Mobile signal dies somewhere around bend three; by bend five you’ve already seen more kestrels than cars. The village isn’t hidden—anyone with a sat-nav can find it—but once the engine is off the loudest sound is the wind scraping through wild rosemary.

A morning in the nucleus

Inside the walls the streets are barely two metres wide, built for donkeys not delivery vans. Whitewash flakes from stone, wooden doors hang on medieval iron hinges, and every second corner reveals a pocket-sized plaza just big enough for a stone bench and a geranium pot. The parish church of San Ambrosio stands at the top, its square tower clocking the hours for farmers who still work the terraces below. Sunday mass at eleven is the only time the bells ring in earnest; the rest of the day they mark nothing noisier than a passing cloud.

There are no ticketed sights, no interpretation boards, no gift shop. What you get instead is continuity: the same family names on the doorbells that were in the 1956 census, the same smell of woodsmoke from cooking stoves, the same elderly men in checked caps who greet the morning with a brandy in the single bar. Conversation stops when a stranger enters, then resumes once the landlord has established you’re British, not German, and therefore unlikely to order lager at nine in the morning.

Walking into the scent zone

Férez makes sense only if you leave it. A web of farm tracks radiates from the last houses, signed with hand-painted stones rather than waymarks. Within ten minutes the village shrinks to a white stripe on the ridge; within twenty you’re among Aleppo pines and kermes oaks, the underbrush thick with thyme and the air sharp with resin. Bootprints are scarce—Spanish walkers prefer the better-known Calares del Río Mundo an hour north—so you share the path with sheep and the occasional wild boar print pressed into the dust.

Popular routes follow the ramblas, dry watercourses that become torrents after autumn storms. A gentle circuit south-east to the abandoned hamlet of El Sabinar takes two hours, dips to 550 m and climbs back to 750 m; the reward is a ruined grain store with views across the Taibilla valley and, in April, sheets of pink cistus flowers that smell faintly of orange peel. If you want something stiffer, continue another 8 km to the head of the Barranco del Murtiga where limestone cliffs host nesting griffon vultures. Summer hiking is feasible only at dawn; by 11 a.m. the thermometer is brushing 36 °C and shade is theoretical.

Food that fits the altitude

Back in the village, lunch options are limited to La Zorrera, a bar-restaurant with three tables inside and four on the square. There is no menu del día in winter; instead the landlady recites what exists that day. Expect gazpacho manchego—nothing like the cold Andalusian soup, this is a hearty game stew thickened with flatbread—followed by cordero al ajo cabañil, lamb simmered in vinegar, garlic and bay until the meat slides from the bone. Vegetarians get pisto manchego, a slow-cooked pepper and aubergine hash topped with a fried egg, plus whatever salad the garden has produced. House red comes from Jumilla in half-litre carafes for €6; bread is charged by the piece at twenty cents. Payment is cash only—there is no ATM in Férez and the card machine works only when the Wi-Fi remembers to return from lunch.

If you’re self-catering, stock up in Albacete before you drive up. The village colmado opens 09:00-13:00 and 17:00-19:30, shelves crammed with tinned tuna, UHT milk and brick-red chorizo vacuum-packed by someone’s cousin. Fresh fish arrives once a week, Thursday afternoon, in a white van whose horn announces salvation to housewives clutching wicker baskets.

Seasons and silence

Spring is the sweet spot: almond blossom in late February, daytime highs around 18 °C, nights cold enough to justify lighting the cottage wood-burner. May brings a wave of green over the terraces and the first bees; it also brings the feast of the Cruz de Mayo, when locals deck cross-shaped shrines with paper flowers and the village brass band plays pasodobles until the early hours. By August the population has doubled with returning grandchildren, but daytime life shuts down between 14:00 and 20:00; even the dogs crawl into shadow. Autumn smells of wet earth and wild mushrooms—Boletus edulis if you’re lucky, a €60 fine if you pick in the nature reserve without a permit. Winter is properly cold: night frosts are common, the wind whistles through ill-fitting windows, and the surrounding peaks occasionally wear a dusting of snow that melts before lunchtime.

Getting there, getting out

Public transport exists in theory. A weekday bus leaves Albacete at 14:15, reaches Férez at 15:45 and turns around immediately. The stop is 2 km below the village on the CM-412; if you miss the descent the driver will happily drop you at the junction and wave cheerfully as you haul your suitcase uphill. Car hire from Alicante airport is simpler—two hours up the A-31 and A-30—and essential if you want to combine Férez with the historic towns of Segura de la Sierra or Yeste. Petrol stations are scarce once you leave the motorway; fill up in Villarrobledo or Almansa unless you fancy testing the fuel light on mountain roads.

Accommodation is mostly self-catering cottages restored by expatriate grandchildren: thick stone walls, terracotta floors, wood-burners and unlimited spring water that tastes faintly of calcium. Expect €70-90 a night for two, minimum stay two nights in low season, Saturday-to-Saturday in August. One place has a rooftop terrace where you can watch the sun drop behind the Sierra de Alcaraz while swifts wheel overhead; phone reception is patchy but the Wi-Fi copes well enough for a Zoom call, should you really need to explain to colleagues why you’re dialling in against a backdrop of goat bells.

Worth it?

Férez offers nothing that fits a bucket list. It gives you instead a calibration point: a place where the day is measured by the angle of sunlight on the church wall, where bread is delivered in a cloth bag, where the loudest mechanical noise at midnight is the creak of the cemetery gate in the breeze. Stay a couple of nights, walk the terraces, drink Jumilla wine on a stone bench while swifts dive between the roofs, and you’ll understand why half the village left for Madrid yet still come back every August. Just remember to bring cash, download the map offline, and fill the tank before you leave the plain.