Culla

The road to Culla leaves the citrus groves behind at 400 m and keeps climbing. By the time the car heater cuts out—thin air, thin fuel—the dashboard shows 1,021 m and the limestone houses ahead are fused to the cliff like barnacles. A single sign reads “Centre Urbà”, hand-painted, no arrow. First-time visitors usually stop here, wondering if the sat-nav has finally lost the plot. It hasn’t; the village simply starts where the tarmac gives up.

Stone that forgot to fall

Culla’s builders treated geology as a suggestion. Walls grow straight out of bedrock, doorframes chiselled into living stone. One alley narrows to 68 cm—locals call it El Pas de la Senyoreta because a 19th-century schoolteacher could just squeeze her crinoline through. Drainpipes are redundant: rain runs down the sloped streets and disappears through natural crevices back into the mountain. The effect is less “pretty hamlet” than “fortified organism”, and the organism is still alive. Laundry flaps above Gothic lintels, wood smoke drifts from chimneys, a spaniel barks from a roof terrace that used to be a Templar sentry walk.

Start at the Plaça Major, a pocket-sized rectangle arcaded on three sides. The stone tables outside Bar Bernat fill only when the sun edges over the church roof—about 11 a.m. in winter, 8 a.m. in July. Order a café amb llet (€1.40) and the barman will push across a saucer of coca celestial, almond sponge the texture of Madeira cake but lighter. It is the closest thing to British baking for 70 km; enjoy it, because the village shop shuts at 14:00 sharp and does not reopen.

From the square every street tilts upward. Follow Carró de la Sang—the old butcher’s lane where blood supposedly sluiced downhill—until the cobbles turn to bare rock. The Templar castle appears without ceremony: a knee-high perimeter wall and a fragment of tower propped by modern scaffolding. No ticket office, no safety rail, just a 270-degree platform looking over the Maestrazgo wilderness. On clear mornings you can pick out the rooftops of Morella 35 km away, and the Pyrenees beyond when the tramuntana wind wipes the haze clean. Sunset is equally dramatic; the problem is getting down afterwards—torches essential because the village switches off every public light at midnight to save money.

Tracks for people who like their silence thick

Seventeen signed footpaths radiate from the top of the ridge. The easiest, Sendero de los Molinos, drops 300 m to a string of dry-stone watermills abandoned in the 1950s. Allow 90 min down, 105 back up; the gradient is gentle but the path is simply riverbed with arrows painted on boulders. After rain the limestone turns into an ice-rink—walking poles help.

Harder options thread along the Barranc de l’Infern, a canyon whose walls close to shoulder width. Griffon vultures nest here; if you hear what sounds like rusty hinges, look up. Carry more water than you think—there are no springs once you leave the village, and summer shade is theoretical.

Mountain-bikers use the same web of tracks. A local guiding company, Maestrat BTT, rents hard-tails (€30/day) and will drive you and the bike to the top of the Port de Querol so you can coast 22 km back to Culla on a dirt service road. The ride is mostly downhill, but the surface is fist-sized calç—think Cotswold bridleway with added vertigo.

Food designed for altitude

Culla’s restaurants number three, all family-run, all within 150 m of the church. Menus revolve around what can survive a 1,000 m winter: lamb, goat, beans, black truffle. At Cal Paradís the house speciality is olla del Maestrat, a clay-pot stew of pork belly, morcilla and chick-peas that arrives still bubbling. One portion feeds two modest appetites; the price is €14 and includes a carafe of local red. Vegetarians get coca de calabaza—roast-pumpkin tart scented with rosemary—but advance notice is wise; the kitchen buys daily and does not keep tofu on speed-dial.

Truffle season runs December–March. During the Fira de la Trufa (third weekend of January) the village fills with hunters carrying nose-to-the-ground dogs that look suspiciously like family pets. Stalls offer shavings on scrambled eggs for €4 a plate; demonstrations show how a trained spaniel can pinpoint a 200-gram nub under 10 cm of soil. Buy a walnut-sized specimen and the vendor will wrap it in foil like contraband—customs at Valencia airport rarely blink, but France is stricter, so plan your route.

When the wind forgets to stop

Culla’s climate is not coastal Spain. In January the thermometer can dip to –8 °C; snow is common but rarely lies more than a day because the air is so dry. August tops 30 °C at midday, yet nights drop to 16 °C—pack a fleece even in midsummer. Rain is scarce (400 mm a year) but arrives in cloud-bursts that turn streets into streams; waterproof boots beat sandals every time.

The village is 71 km from Castellón de la Plana and 93 km from Valencia airport. The final 25 km are CV mountain roads: well-surfaced but single-carriageway with 15 % gradients and hairpins tight enough to meet your own tail-lights. Coaches cannot reach the top; if you’re on public transport, take the train to Vinaròs or Castellón, then taxi (pre-book, €80–€100). Petrol is unavailable after Ares del Maestre, 18 km short—arrive with a full tank and check your brake pads for the descent.

Accommodation is limited. The medieval wing of Torre del Saraceno has four doubles (from €70, breakfast included) with walls a metre thick and Wi-Fi that gives up after one Spotify track. Two village houses rent as self-catering apartments (€90–€120 night, two-night minimum). Book ahead for Easter, August and truffle weekend; outside those periods you can usually knock on doors and secure a room by nightfall, but English is patchy—download Spanish offline in Google Translate and bring cash. There is no ATM; the nearest is in Cinctorres, 12 km down the hill.

Leave before the stones remember you

Stay three days and Culla starts to feel proprietary. The baker will have your morning bocadillo ready without asking, the old men on the bench will nod instead of stare. Stay four and you notice the silence amplifying: no motorway, no nightclubs, only the wind riffling through TV aerials. By day five the village has decided you live here, and leaving feels like an eviction.

That is the point. Culla does not sell itself; it simply continues, 1,000 m above the hurry, stone walls warming by day and cooling by night with the slow pulse of the mountain. Come for the castle view, the empty trails, the truffle-scented eggs. Leave while you still remember how to drive downhill—unless you’re ready to swap British drizzle for a sky so dark the Milky Way casts a shadow.