Jérica

The road from Valencia airport climbs steadily for fifty-five minutes, leaving the coastal flats behind. Olive groves replace orange trees; the air thins; suddenly a brick-and-ceramic tower pricks the skyline like a needle through cloth. That tower is the first sign that Jerica is not another whitewashed commuter village, but a place that has been negotiating with gravity since the fourteenth century.

At 523 m above sea level the village feels the seasons. In July the thermometers still nudge 35 °C, yet after sunset the temperature drops sharply enough to make a jumper welcome. January mornings can hover at 3 °C, but when the almond orchards below the walls break into flower the plateau turns snow-white and the cold smells sweet. Spring and autumn are the comfortable windows: warm enough to sit outside the bakery on Calle Mayor at 10 a.m., cool enough to hike at 4 p.m. without running out of water.

A castle you have to imagine, views you don’t

The Castillo de Jerica is less a castle than a crossword puzzle of masonry. What remains are fragments of Islamic walls, a rebuilt Christian keep and flights of uneven stone steps that demand proper footwear. Interpretation panels are minimal; this is a ruin that expects visitors to do some mental join-the-dots. The effort is repaid at the summit: westwards the Palancia gorge corkscrews into the Sierra de Espadán; eastwards the coastal hazed horizon appears, proof that the Med is only forty kilometres away as the crow flies. Entry is free, gates open from 8 a.m. to sunset, and on weekdays you may share the ramparts only with a pair of kestrels.

Half-way down the hill, the Torre Mudéjar stands detached from any church, a free-standing bell tower that looks almost Moorish until you notice the Gothic arch of the doorway. Brick is laid in herringbone, turquoise ceramic bands thread through the shaft, and the whole thing leans very slightly north-west. UNESCO added it to the World-Heritage list in 1986 as one of the Valencian Mudéjar towers, yet no ticket booth or turnstile mars the base; you simply walk up, read the plaque, and wonder how many earthquakes it has shrugged off.

Dinner at nine, or go hungry

British stomachs should reset their clocks. Kitchens in Jerica close around 4 p.m. for the siesta stretch and reopen for supper at 8:30 p.m.; if you arrive at 6 p.m. expecting a meal you will be offered coffee and little else. Randurías, the restaurant that tops TripAdvisor’s list, serves mountain Valencian food rather than coastal paella. Expect gamey stews thickened with almonds, artichokes bartered down from the huerta, and the local noodles called “fideus” toasted in the pan before broth is added. Staff speak enough English to explain the menu and will happily swap rabbit for chicken if the idea of conejo feels too Watership Down. A three-course menú del día is €16 mid-week; wine included.

El Rullo, opposite the church, trades in hearty spoon dishes: lentils with morcilla, chickpeas and spinach, gazpacho manchego (which is nothing like the cold tomato soup Brits know). Portions are built for people who have walked all morning; half-raciones are perfectly acceptable and cost about €7. For something lighter, the bakery on Plaza de España bakes flaó, a rectangular pastry glazed with honey and sesame, ideal for pocketing before a hike.

Footpaths, not postcards

The tourist office beside the town gate keeps a free A4 sheet showing three circular walks. None are marquee hikes, and that is the point. Route one follows the dry riverbed south for 5 km, detours through a stand of carob trees and returns via an old irrigation channel. You might see wild asparagus in March or a hoopoe flicking between almond trunks. The yellow waymarks are faded, so download the GPX before leaving Wi-Fi.

Ambitious walkers sometimes ask about Pico Espadán, the 1,000 m summit that dominates the western skyline. It is reachable, but not from the village itself; the trailhead at Chóvar is a twenty-minute drive and the round trip takes five hours. Hire cars are therefore more useful than walking boots alone. Without wheels you are tied to the weekday bus that links Jerica with Segorbe, and that bus has been known to leave early if the driver thinks no one is waiting.

Oil, flowers and a church that locks at noon

January and February turn the surrounding terraces into a froth of almond blossom. The village celebrates with a weekend fiesta de la almendra en flor: stalls sell sugared almonds, the baker produces an almond custard tart, and someone inevitably hands out small glasses of mistela, the sweet Moscatel that Valencians drink instead of sherry. Turn up on the Saturday morning and you can join a free guided walk through the orchards; wellies recommended after rain.

Later in the year, usually mid-April, the cooperative press opens its doors for olive-oil tourism. You watch the paste being kneaded, taste the first-run arbequina, and learn why locals drizzle it over toast instead of butter. Tours are free but must be booked at the ayuntamiento; if the harvest has been poor the press may not run at all, so phone ahead rather than risk disappointment.

The Iglesia del Salvador keeps Gothic ribs and a Baroque retable, but its real charm is the Mudéjar bell-tower grafted onto the west end. Opening hours are erratic: 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturdays only; the rest of the week you may find a locked door and a handwritten note directing you to collect the key from a house two streets away. Persistence is part of the game.

Beds, bolts and Sunday silence

Accommodation is limited. The three-star Hotel de Jerica has twenty rooms facing an interior courtyard; doubles are around €65 with breakfast, Wi-Fi is patchy on the third floor. A handful of village houses have been turned into rentals; the one with the “stunning balcony” on booking sites really does overlook the gorge, but check whether the single-track lane outside allows a turning place if you are driving anything larger than a Fiat 500.

Shops shut on Sunday afternoons and all day Monday; bread can be bought from the filling-station on the CV-195. If you are staying over Sunday, fill the car and the fridge in the morning or plan a trip to Segorbe where supermarkets stay open. The same applies to cash: Jerica’s only ATM sometimes runs dry at weekends, and card payment is still treated with mild suspicion in family bars.

A village that asks for patience, not pity

Jerica will never compete with coastal Valencia for nightlife or postcard perfection. The castle is rubble, the palace a façade, and winter mists can hide the tower for days. Yet the place functions: grandparents still sweep the pavement at dawn, teenagers practise skateboard tricks on the plaza after school, and the bakery sells bread at €1.20 a loaf because locals, not tourists, need to eat. Come with time rather than a tick-list, arrive before the almonds bloom or after the summer heat breaks, and the village repays with something the coast has mislaid—an ordinary working rhythm that lets visitors slip briefly into Spanish time.