Montanejos

The thermometer reads 24°C before breakfast. Not the air – the water. While the Costa Blanca still fumbles for its flip-flops, the Mijares river in Montanejos is already towel temperature, thanks to a thermal spring that refuses to drop below 25°C all year. That single geological quirk turns a 500-person mountain outpost into an inland beach resort every weekend from Easter to October.

The River Rules

Drive in from Valencia on the A-23, leave the last warehouse behind at La Pobla de Vallbona, and the road begins its accordion-fold climb into the Sierra de Espadán. Pine and cork-oak replace orange groves; the temperature gauge on the dashboard falls five degrees in twenty minutes. At 418m above sea-level Montanejos appears – a stripe of terracotta roofs wedged between limestone walls. The village itself is ordinary in the best sense: a medieval church tower, two grocers, three bakeries, no cash machine. People still prop their doors open and hang washing across the lane.

Ignore the town for now. Everyone else does. Follow the brown signs to Fuente de los Baños, park on the rough ground by the sports centre (free, but fill up the hire car first – the nearest 24-h petrol is 35km back towards the coast), and walk the paved kilometre that shadows the irrigation channel. Wheelchair-friendly, push-chair-friendly, yet the last stretch still feels like trespassing through someone’s orchard. Then the gorge narrows, the path drops, and the river opens into a swimming lane of jade water ringed by reeds and picnic towels.

Between May and September a bored attendant in a hut collects €3 online or €3.50 on the gate. The money buys you a numbered wristband, a cold shower that may or may not have pressure, and the right to fight for a square of gravel. Arrive before ten and you’ll share the pool with half a dozen dog-walkers and one serious swimmer doing width training. Arrive after the first Valencia coach and you’ll queue to change in a portacabin that smells of damp loo roll. The water, though, never disappoints: clear enough to watch small carp nosing your shins, warm enough to stay in for an hour without the usual British shriek-and-hop dance.

Cliff-jumping starts on the far side where the gorge wall folds into a 4m ledge. Lifeguards turn a blind eye unless the river is low; check for submerged rocks all the same. Dogs are banished from the main pool in high season – they slip 40m downstream and seem perfectly happy with the arrangement.

Upstream and Over the Edge

If the river is Montanejos’ living-room, the surrounding tracks are its attic. Marked trails strike out from the upper streets, white-painted stones saving you from a £400 mountain-rescue bill. The classic two-hour Ruta de los Manantiales loops through pine plantations to a string of lesser springs and a mirador that frames the Mijares like green glass in a stone setting. Add another hour for the Saltos de la Novia, a twin waterfall that photographs best after heavy rain yet still offers a decent plunge pool in late September. Take water shoes – the riverbed is a jigsaw of smooth cobbles and ankle-trapping channels.

Serious walkers can keep going east into the Carrascal de la Font Roja, a 6,000-hectare maze of cork-oak where Spanish hikers come for three-day backpacks and British second-home owners pretend they’re in the Lake District without the drizzle. Summer temperatures sit 8-10°C cooler than Valencia; in January you may wake to a dusting of snow that melts by lunchtime and leaves the thermal pool steaming like a bath someone forgot to drain.

When the Valley Floods with People

Weekend dynamics follow a set script. Friday night belongs to Valencian couples who rent the €65 two-bedroom flats above the bakeries and bring their own rosemary for the paella. Saturday the student buses arrive: Erasmus societies, stag dos in sombreros, crates of supermarket lager. By 2pm the riverbank is a festival of competing Bluetooth speakers; by 6pm the Guardia Civil shuttle the last stragglers back to the car park and the village reverts to cicadas and frying garlic.

Come Sunday morning the Spanish families take over: three generations, cool-box the size of a washing machine, grandmother already fanning the embers for arroz al horno. They leave at tea-time, trailing inflatable crocodiles, and suddenly you remember Montanejos is still a parish where the church bell marks the hours.

Eating (and Running Out of Cash)

The gastronomy is mountain-housewife cooking rather than Instagram bait. Trucha a la navarra – river trout stuffed with serrano ham – appears on every laminated menu; order it at midday and it tastes of butter and clean water, order at 10pm and it’s been sitting in a warming tray since the lunchtime rush. Migas ruleras, breadcrumbs fried with chorizo and grapes, is the acceptable face of stodge after a long hike. Vegetarians get roasted piquillo peppers and not much else; vegans should bring their own picnic.

Cafetería El Molino fries reliable churros from 8am; by 11am the chocolate is thick enough to stand a spoon in. Restaurant Mijares will cook paella for two if you ask the night before – £16 a head, minimum, but they let you watch the wood-fire ritual and doggy-bag the leftovers. None of the restaurants take cards; the nearest ATM is a 20-minute drive in Cortes de Arenoso, so fill your wallet before you leave the coast.

The Quiet Months

Between November and March the entry gate stays open but no one collects money. The water is still 25°C; steam rises like kettle mist into the cold air. British winter visitors tend to be rock-climbers heading for the limestone walls of Chorro de la Maimona, or couples on a cheap off-season break who’ve mis-timed the heating bill. Cafés shorten their hours; two close completely. Yet the village functions: the baker still rakes his oven at five, the chemist still knows everyone’s blood pressure, and you can walk the gorge alone at sunset listening only to the river and the occasional goat bell.

Getting Out Alive

Road access is the unspoken adrenaline sport. The CV-20 from Castellón is twisty but civilised; the approach from Teruel via El Cuervo is single-track with 300m drops and no barrier. Coaches use it regardless, which explains the dented crash barriers and the flower-shrine near the mirador. If you meet a bus on a bend, the rule is the downhill vehicle reverses; hire-car insurance rarely covers clutch burnout.

Leave enough time for the drive back. The motorway may say 90km to Valencia, but the mountain loop adds forty slow minutes, longer if Sunday traffic is nose-to-tail behind a caravan of cyclists. Pack water, download offline maps, and don’t trust the petrol gauge – the last garage before the plains shuts at 9pm sharp.

Montanejos will not change your life. It has no Michelin stars, no Moorish castle, no craft-beer taproom. What it does have is a river that never gets cold, walks that start at the front door, and the strange luxury of floating in bath-warm water while the rest of Spain is still hunting for the sun-cream. Turn up early, bring euros, and the valley will let you in on its open secret. Just don’t forget to pick up your rubbish – the carp have enough to deal with already.