Casinos

A Search Engine’s Practical Joke

Type “Casinos Valencia” into your phone at Gatwick and the algorithm will bombard you with velvet-rope glamour: poker tables, all-you-can-eat buffets, late-night taxis to the city’s Casino Cirsa. Keep scrolling until the postcode 46169 appears and you finally reach the real subject of this piece—an agricultural village 40 km inland where the only green felt is the baize of a Sunday-dominoes table in the Bar Central. It is a confusion that spares the place from coach parties; it also explains why the parish church still has the same eighteenth-century stonework no one has thought to photograph for a guidebook.

Stone, Water and the Smell of Almonds

Casinos sits at 310 m above sea level, high enough for the air to lose the coastal cling of rice-field humidity yet low enough for oranges to ripen without frost. The Camp de Túria plain folds around it like a worked tablecloth: irrigation channels—acequias—draw grid-lines through vegetable plots, while almond and olive terraces push against pine-covered ridges. From the Ermita de San Roque, twenty minutes’ uphill on a mule track, you can pick out the Sierra Calderona bruising the horizon and, on very clear April mornings, the flash of the Mediterranean 35 km beyond.

The village centre is a ten-minute square of streets. The Iglesia de San Juan Bautista rises from the Plaza Mayor with a tower you can clock from almost every lane; step inside during the half-hour when the doors are actually open and you’ll find a Baroque retablo gilded with the proceeds of seventeenth-century hemp. Around the corner the Palacio de los Condes de Casinos, now the ayuntamiento, keeps its courtyard doors politely ajar—peek in to see the original horse-block where tenant farmers once mounted before riding out to collect rents in kind.

What Passes for Action

There are no ticketed attractions, audio-guides or multilingual panels. Instead you walk. A signed loop, the Camino de los Molinos, follows an acequia south-east to the ruins of three water-mills that once ground the local wheat; the path is flat, shade-punctuated and takes ninety minutes at the pace of a dog-walker. Mountain boots are overkill—trainers suffice, though after heavy September storms the clay sticks like treacle.

Serious hikers link up the PR-V 147 which climbs north into pine forest and reaches a fire-road along the ridge; from the top you can drop down to Lliria, catch a late-afternoon train back to Valencia city, or phone for a taxi if knees protest. Mid-week you will meet no one except an elderly man collecting pine cones for his chimney and, inexplicably, a British orienteering club who discovered the route on Wikiloc last year.

Sweet Economics

Agriculture still pays the bills, but the crop that interests visitors is sugar-based. Three family turrón factories—Paya, Pomares and Sirvent—operate inside village houses whose garages have been converted into stainless-steel kitchens. Between October and December the smell of toasted almonds drifts through the streets like an airborne dessert. Walk in (doorbells are optional) and you can watch a grandson stretch the soft nougat on a marble slab, cut it with a bicycle-sized guillotine and wrap it in wax paper faster than you can say “Kendal mint cake”. Prices run from €9 a bar for basic blando to €22 for yema tostada; they take cards only if you spend over €20, otherwise bring cash.

Outside the nougat season the same families switch to peladillas—sugar-coated almonds dyed pastel pink, blue and yellow. They survive a Ryanair cabin bag intact and make lighter souvenirs than a bottle of mistela.

When to Turn Up, When to Run Away

Spring and autumn give you 22 °C afternoons, wild marjoram on the paths and almond blossom or saffron crocus depending on the month. Summer is oven-hot; by 14:00 even the swifts look exhausted, and the village obeys the siesta with religious severity. Winter is mild by British standards—think Devon without the rain—but the countryside browns off and hiking views haze out.

Fiesta periods flip the calm on its head. The Fiestas de San Juan (third weekend June) pack the single main street with paella pans the size of satellite dishes and a firework display that feels louder because the buildings bounce the sound back at you. The Artisanal Sweet Fair (first weekend December) blocks the through-road for stalls selling nougat by the kilo; parking becomes a contact sport and every B&B within 20 km sells out. Visit mid-week just before either event and you’ll see preparations without the crowds: teenage boys practising marching band drums, grandmothers threading almond garlands, the mayor worrying about portable loo ratios.

Eating Without a Marina in Sight

There are two proper restaurants, both on the CV-25 ring-road because that’s where space allows extractor fans. Casa Salvador serves rice dishes baked in the wood oven—order the arroz al horno with pork rib and chickpeas, enough for two at €16 pp. Mesón el Pueblo does grilled rabbit with rosemary and a half-decent house red from nearby Utiel-Requena; locals eat at 15:00, so arrive at 14:00 for a quiet table. In the village core Bar Central plates daily specials: if it’s Thursday the stew is meatballs in almond sauce, Fridays mean cocas—oval flatbreads topped with roasted aubergine and honey. Vegetarians survive on tortilla and salads; vegans negotiate.

Coffee after lunch comes with a complimentary mini-turrón the size of a domino—accept it, refusal confuses the waiter.

Getting There, Staying There, Leaving Again

No UK airline will sell you a ticket to Casinos. Fly to Valencia, collect a hire car at the terminal, head west on the A-3, peel off onto the CV-35 and follow signs for Llíria/Bétera, then CV-25 exit 62. The journey is 45 minutes if you avoid the morning crawl into Valencia’s industrial estates; add another fifteen if your sat-nav panics at the Llíria roundabout.

Public transport exists in theory—a commuter train to Llíria plus a Monday-to-Friday bus—but the connection times assume you packed patience rather than luggage. Taxis from Llíria cost €25 each way and must be booked the previous day.

Accommodation is the weak link. There is no hotel inside the village; nearest are in Llíria (Hotel Beleret, three-star, pool, €70 B&B) or the converted farmhouse Casa Rural Masia El Pinet outside Olocau (€90 for a double, minimum two nights at weekends). Self-catering townhouses appear on Airbnb for €60-80 a night; they come with spiral stairs, patchy Wi-Fi and neighbours who practise trumpet. Book early for fiestas or resign yourself to a 25-minute night-drive from Llíria after the fireworks.

A Quiet Verdict

Casinos will not change your life. It offers no beach selfies, no Michelin stars, no flamenco tablaos. What it does give is a slice of inland Valencia that package brochures ignore: the smell of almond nougat competing with wood smoke, the sound of a single church bell marking the hour, a walking trail where the only other footprints belong to someone who grew the lettuce you ate for lunch. Come if you are passing, stay if you crave silence, leave before the algorithm catches on.