Algimia de Alfara

The morning light hits the citrus groves first, turning the valley floor gold while the Sierra Calderona keeps the village in shade until nearly nine. By then, tractors are already threading between the orange rows, their trailers heavy with fruit that will reach Covent Garden within 48 hours. This is Algimia de Alfara: not pretty-postcard Spain, but a working village where the smell of diesel mingles with azahar blossom and the parish bell still marks the day.

A grid of streets that remembers the Moors

Algimia sits 180 metres above the coastal plain, close enough to smell the sea on a westerly breeze yet shielded from summer’s worst heat. The layout is textbook Islamic: narrow lanes running east–west to catch the wind, a central plaça for grain and gossip, and a church that occupies the site of the old mosque. Stone portals the colour of burnt cream give onto pocket-sized courtyards where lemons drop onto terracotta tiles. Nobody restored the place for tourists; they simply never got round to knocking it down.

Walk uphill five minutes from the plaça and the houses peter out into almond terraces. Keep going and you hit the GR-10 long-distance footpath, which stitches together dry-stone walls, irrigation ditches and the occasional stone hut still used at harvest time. The circuit to El Puntal ridge takes ninety minutes, gains 300 metres and delivers a view that stretches from the steelworks at Sagunto to the skyscrapers of Valencia. Take water: there’s no kiosk at the top, only a bench and the smell of wild thyme.

Oranges, oil and one decent bar

The village earns its living from citrus and, increasingly, from olives pressed in the cooperative on the road out. Visit on a Tuesday morning and you can watch the line of smallholders waiting to tip their crates of navelina oranges into the grading machine. The largest grades fetch €0.28 a kilo; the smallest go to the juicing plant outside Sagunto. Ask politely and they’ll sell you a 5-kilo sack for two euros cash – cheaper than bottled water and absurdly sweet.

Food options inside the village boundary are limited to Bar Algimia (grilled sardines on Thursday, rabbit paella on Sunday) and a bakery that runs out of coques – Valencian pizza-bread – by ten. Everything else means a twelve-minute drive to Gilet for supermarkets or twenty-five minutes to the port-side tapas bars of Sagunto. The local fix is to book dinner at El Secanet, the converted farmhouse on the southern approach. Host Salva cooks a fixed four-course menu (€24) using whatever his vegetable garden over-delivers: perhaps artichoke stew, perhaps cod poached in local olive oil. Vegetarians survive if they warn him ahead; vegans should pack emergency almonds.

When to come, and when to stay away

April smells of orange blossom and the temperature hovers either side of 20°C – perfect for cycling the dead-flat lanes that link Algimia with neighbouring Alfara del Patriarca and Torres Torres. May adds wild poppies to the verges and sees village fiestas in every direction, though Algimia itself waits until late September for San Miguel. Expect late-night fireworks, a procession with a silver-haired angel perched on a wooden frame and communal paella for 600 people in the school playground. If you dislike loud bangs, book elsewhere.

July and August are furnace-hot; the thermometer kisses 38°C and the grove sprinklers hiss all night. Spanish families retreat to coastal apartments, leaving the village half-empty but the pool at El Secanet unpleasantly busy. November brings the harvest and a pleasant, earthy bustle, though short daylight means you’re walking at dawn or not at all. January can be sharp: 6°C at midday, wood-smoke in the streets and snow visible on the 1,100-metre peaks behind the village. The coast stays green, but the GR-10 turns slick with clay – bring proper boots.

Getting here (and why you’ll need wheels)

Valencia airport to Algimia takes 45 minutes on the AP-7 toll road (€6.95) or an hour if you skirt the coast on the free A-7. Car hire is non-negotiable: the nearest railway station is eight kilometres away in Estivella, and the weekday bus from Valencia grinds to a halt at the junction of the CV-310, a twenty-minute uphill slog from the village centre with no pavement. Taxis refuse the run after 9 p.m. unless pre-booked. Parking is refreshingly simple – the plaça has spaces even on fiesta day and the locals still leave keys in the ignition while they collect bread.

From the UK, Ryanair and easyJet serve Valencia daily from Gatwick, Stansted, Bristol and Manchester outside the depths of winter. Mid-week returns hover around £70 in March, triple that at Easter and in August. If you’re combining village quiet with a city hit, Valencia’s centro histórico is 35 minutes door-to-door, making it feasible to breakfast among orange trees and be admiring the Silk Exchange frescoes before the coffee gets cold.

The honest verdict

Algimia de Alfara will never feature on a regional tourism poster. It has no castle, no Michelin stars, no craft shops selling turquoise ceramics. What it offers is a slice of functioning Valencian life: the clatter of trailers at first light, the baker gossiping about rainfall, the evening paseo that still circles the church at seven on the dot. Come if you want to walk between scented groves, eat an orange straight from the tree and sleep where the only night noise is the church bell counting the hours. Don’t come if you need boutiques, uber-fast Wi-Fi or a cocktail list. Bring a car, a phrasebook and an appetite for citrus – then leave before the village decides it likes you too much to let you go.