Vallat

The mobile shop van arrives on Thursdays at eleven. If the engine note echoes off the stone walls a little earlier, someone will lean out of a doorway and shout “¡Ya viene!” – the weekly supermarket is here. That is the closest thing Vallat has to rush hour.

Perched at 276 m on a fold of the Alto Mijares, the hamlet counts sixty-six souls on the municipal roll, though you will be lucky to spot more than a dozen at once. Stone houses squat along lanes barely two metres wide; citrus trees grow out of tiny courtyards; the loudest noise is usually a billy goat protesting the length of his tether. British visitors looking for a digital detox have started booking the handful of farmhouses-turned-apartments on the ridge. Mobile reception dies two kilometres short of the village, so Instagram waits until you drive back down the CV-205 for supplies.

The lie of the land

Dry-stone terraces stitch the slopes below the houses, each wall built to win a few extra metres of soil from limestone. Most are now planted with olives and almonds that need no irrigation beyond winter rain. The geometry is clearest at dawn when the first sun throws long shadows across the valley of the river Mijares, forty minutes away by car but invisible until you reach the last bend. Across the gap rise the razor edges of the Sierra de Espadán; on hazy days the ridgeline seems to float like a cardboard cut-out.

There is no centre as such, only a triangle of alleys that converge on the church of Sant Miquel. The building is squat, lime-washed and kept unlocked. Inside, the only splash of colour is a nineteenth-century fresco of St Michael sporting what looks suspiciously like a British Guardsman’s red coat. Locals regard the painting with affection rather than awe; they are prouder of the wooden bell platform, rebuilt by the same carpenter who repairs the terrace walls each spring.

Walking without way-markers

Official hiking leaflets do not bother with Vallat, which is precisely why walkers use it. Two dirt tracks leave the upper end of the village; both turn into footpaths within fifteen minutes. The northern fork drops into Barranc de la Fos, a limestone gorge shaded by Aleppo pines and kermes oaks. Mid-way down you meet an irrigation channel built in Moorish times: flat stones span the water, perfect for a picnic provided you sit with feet dangling – the channel is only knee-deep. Continue for another kilometre and you reach Salto del Agua, a three-metre waterfall that fills a chest-deep pool. Bring pool shoes; the bottom is a jumble of almond-sized pebbles that roll underfoot.

The southern track climbs more steeply, gaining 250 m in forty minutes. At the top the path peters out on a threshing floor the size of a tennis court, stone slabs laid edge to edge so mules could tread grain. From here the view opens west to the high plains of Aragón; on clear evenings you can watch the sun slip behind the 1 800 m ridge of El Moncayo a hundred kilometres away. Golden eagles use the same thermals, gliding past at eye level before the heat haze builds. Binoculars are useful; the birds are gone by ten o’clock.

What passes for gastronomy

There is no restaurant, only a bar with three tables and a television that shows the Castellón local news on mute. If you want lunch on a Sunday you must order by half-twelve; the cook finishes when the last pre-booked paella leaves the pan, usually around three. Mid-week you are limited to coffee, beer and the sort of crisps that still carry the 1980s packaging. Self-catering is simpler. The mobile shop sells tinned tomatoes, UHT milk, and the local almonds – buy a kilo bag, they cost half the supermarket price in Castellón. Ten minutes down the road in Argelita, the bakery opens at seven and sells “coca de tomaca”, a thin dough smeared with tomato and a thread of olive oil: think pizza bianca meets bruschetta, child-friendly and un-spicy.

Local honey appears in unlabelled jars on windowsills; payment goes in an honesty box made from a cut-down plastic water bottle. The flavour is mild, more orange-blossom than the chestnut honeys British farmers’ markets push, and it spreads easily on morning toast. If you rent one of the converted farmhouses, the owner will almost certainly produce an almond cake on arrival – a moist disc flavoured only with lemon zest and a splash of brandy, closer to Dundee than to the polenta-heavy versions served on the coast.

Seasons and silence

Spring arrives late; night frosts can linger into April, so almond blossom does not peak until early March, two weeks after the coastal groves. The compensation is daylight that smells of thyme and damp pine, plus the sound of bee-eaters returning from Africa. May and October are the most reliable months: temperatures sit in the low twenties, paths are firm after rain, and the bar owner keeps longer hours because hikers appear more regularly.

Summer is hot but rarely suffocating; altitude knocks three or four degrees off the coast. The handful of British families who base themselves here spend mornings by the river pools and retreat indoors after lunch when even the goats seek shade. August brings the fiesta: one evening of open-air dancing, a foam machine for children, and a communal paella cooked in a pan two metres wide. Fireworks are modest – a few rockets that echo off the gorge and frighten the eagles.

Winter is when you grasp how small the settlement really is. The bar may open only at weekends; if trade is slow the kitchen shuts at five. Rain turns the access lane into a strip of caramel-coloured mud; a hire car without decent tyres will scrabble for grip. Yet the skies are crystalline, and you can walk for two hours without seeing tyre tracks or footprints. On 6 January the Three Kings arrive by tractor rather than camel, handing out sweets to the two children who still attend the local school.

Getting there – and away

Valencia airport receives direct flights from Stansted, Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham year-round; Castellón’s tiny terminal adds summer Ryanair links to Bristol and East Midlands. From either airport allow seventy minutes by hire car: motorway to Onda, then the CV-20 and a final twelve kilometres of snaking county road. Sat-nav coverage quits four kilometres out, so screenshot the turn-off towards Vallat/Argelita while you still have bars. There is no petrol station after Onda; fill up or risk a twenty-kilometre round trip for diesel.

Public transport stops at Argelita, seven kilometres downhill. A taxi from Castellón costs about €50 if you pre-book; otherwise you are walking. Most visitors treat the village as a two-night add-on to the coast, but staying longer is easy provided you arrive with groceries and a full tank. The reward is night skies bright with stars, and the certain knowledge that when the goats finally settle, the loudest sound is your own heartbeat.