Beneixama

The church bell strikes noon, and every bar stool in Beneixama fills within minutes. This isn't orchestrated theatre – it's simply how the village tells time. At 680 metres above the baking Alicante coast, the Alt Vinalopó district runs on a slower gear, and Beneixama, population 1,697, keeps the steadiest rhythm of all.

A Different Altitude, A Different Attitude

Leave Alicante airport, drive forty minutes inland, and the temperature gauge drops six degrees. Olive groves replace banana palms; almond terraces staircase the hills; the air smells of rosemary and hot stone rather than sunscreen. The CV-655 winds upwards until the road narrows to a single lane between whitewashed houses – you've arrived, and the only parking instruction is "don't block someone's gate".

The village sits on a ridge between the serried peaks of the Sierra de Salinas and the vine-filled bowl of the Vinalopó valley. That position matters: summers are warm (30 °C afternoons) but nights drop to 19 °C, so you can actually sleep without the air-conditioning that the coast considers essential. Winters bring sharp dawns at 3 °C, occasional snow on the higher almond branches, and log-smoke drifting from chimney pots. If you're booking a rural house between December and February, check whether the owners include heating in the price – many still treat it as an optional extra.

What Passes for Sights

Start at the Torre de la Plaza, the sixteenth-century watch-tower that doubles as the village compass. The stone spiral is narrow and there are no safety rails, but the 360-degree payoff stretches from the castle ruins of Biar in the west to the marble quarries of Novelda in the east. Entry is free; the key hangs on a nail inside the tourist office door – if the office is shut, ask in the bakery opposite, they'll know who lives two streets away and keeps a spare.

The Iglesia de San Pedro hides behind a modest baroque façade that took three centuries to complete. Inside, the temperature falls another five degrees; look up and you'll see a cedar-wood ceiling painted with what locals proudly call "the most beautiful mistakes in the province" – cherubs whose faces were clearly added by different craftsmen. Mass is still sung at 11:00 on Sundays; visitors are welcome, but shorts are frowned upon and the priest will pause mid-gospel to hand a shawl to anyone underdressed.

Beyond that, Beneixama's attractions are micro rather than mega. The Plaza Mayor measures 38 paces across; its single palm tree was replanted in 1987 after the original died of loneliness, or so the story goes. House number 7 has a reja painted the exact colour of British post-box red – nobody knows why, but the owner touches it up every April. These are the details photographers love, and no one charges a euro to look.

Eating (and Drinking) the Calendar

Breakfast is a mollete – a soft roll split and rubbed with tomato, then topped with tinned tuna that tastes better than it has any right to. Café Central opens at 07:00 for field workers; by 09:00 the same counter serves gin-and-coffee to the retired men playing dominoes. Order a café bombón (condensed-milk espresso) and you'll pay €1.20; ask for it in halting Spanish and they'll correct your pronunciation kindly.

Lunch depends on the day. Tuesday and Friday are rice days: arroz secos with rabbit and garrofón beans, cooked until the base caramelises into socarrat. Thursday is gazpacho manchego – nothing like the cold Andalusian soup, more a game-and-paprika stew thickened with flatbread. Pudding is almost always tarta de almendra, moist enough to survive the village's enthusiastic use of cinnamon. If you need a break from local wine, La Rata Cellarda (yes, run by a couple from Kent) pours a decent Kentish cider alongside Spanish cheeses – the only place for fifty kilometres where you can get both.

Between September and October the vendimia turns every garage into a pop-up winery. Bodega Los Pinos offers two-hour visits for €12: you tread three kilos of grapes, taste last year's mistela, then leave with a plastic bottle of cloudy juice that will ferment explosively if you don't refrigerate it. They speak enough English to explain sulphite levels but insist on Valencian when discussing the family politics of who inherited which vineyard.

Walking It Off

Six signed footpaths radiate from the village; none is longer than 12 km, and all start at the petrol station that hasn't sold fuel since 2009 – the pumps are now flower planters. Route 2, the PR-CV 80, climbs 250 metres to the Ermita de San Blas in 45 minutes. The hermitage is locked, but the porch offers the best mobile-phone reception for miles, so don't be surprised to find teenagers live-streaming to Valencia while goats graze nearby.

Spring walkers come for almond blossom (late February to mid-March). The trees flower in elevation waves: first the valley floor, then the middle terraces, finally the ridge line two weeks later. A frosty morning can wipe out half the crop overnight, and locals will shrug: "We plant almonds because olives take too long to feel sorry for themselves." Bring a light jacket – the breeze at 700 metres is sharper than it looks.

Summer hiking is possible if you start before 08:00. The limestone tracks reflect heat, so carry more water than you think sensible; there are no cafés between the village and the next settlement, and the only fountain marked on the 1:25,000 map dried up in 2015. Autumn brings the reverse problem: sudden downpours turn the clay sections into skating rinks. Walking boots with tread are more use than poles – the slopes are short but slippery.

When the Village Turns the Volume Up

For fifty-one weeks of the year Beneixama's night-life ends when the bar televisions switch off at 23:30. The fifty-second week is the August fiesta: brass bands march through the streets at 03:00, fireworks echo off the stone houses, and someone will try to convince you that drinking sweet mistela from a porrón is traditional (it isn't, but it's effective). Accommodation triples in price and halves in availability; if you want sleep, book a room in Biar and drive in for the fireworks. The final night ends with a communal paella for 2,000 people – tickets €7, bought from the chemist's the week before, sell out in two hours.

Easter is quieter but equally vivid. Thursday's procession leaves the church at 21:00; by 21:05 the only light comes from candles carried by hooded penitents. The route circles the village three times, timing each circuit so the drumbeat echoes off the tower exactly as the clock strikes the quarter. Tourists are welcome to follow; just don't walk inside the rope that marks the procession route – the village still argues about the British visitor who tripped on it in 2018.

The Practical Bits That Matter

Car hire is non-negotiable. A taxi from Alicante airport costs €90 if pre-booked, €110 if you just hope for one on arrival. There is a bus – it leaves Alicante at 14:15 on weekdays, reaches Beneixama at 16:30, and returns at 06:55 next morning. That's it. The village garage closed in 2021, so fill up in Novelda before the final climb.

Shops observe the classic siesta: 14:00-17:00, closed Sunday, Saturday afternoon, and any saint's day you haven't heard of. The bakery makes 30 baguettes daily; when they're gone, they're gone. The single ATM belongs to Bankia and occasionally refuses foreign cards – carry €50 in cash as insurance.

Accommodation is mostly self-catering townhouses. Casa del Riu shares a pool with one neighbour and has a roof terrace wide enough for sunset gin-and-tonics; expect to pay £110 a night in May, £160 in August. The owners leave a welcome pack: two bottles of water, a loaf of sliced white (no one knows why), and a note explaining which tap yields drinking water (the one on the right, always). There is no hotel; the nearest is 12 km away in Villena, convenient only if you fancy a castle view and don't mind driving back after wine.

Leaving Without the Hard Sell

Beneixama won't change your life. You won't tick off a world heritage site or brag about a celebrity chef dinner. What you might do is remember how villages functioned before they rebranded themselves for weekenders: the bakery knows how you like your coffee by day three, the petrol-station-cum-florist will warn you the road to Biar is closed, and someone you've never met will insist on lending you a corkscrew because "you're having supper on the roof, aren't you?"

Fly home, and the Costa Blanca brochures will still promise the same beaches and theme pubs. Beneixama will carry on regardless, planting almonds, bottling wine, and arguing about whose grandfather really painted the church cherubs. Come if that sounds enough.