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about La Font de la Figuera
Border town with a winemaking tradition and the altarpiece by Juan de Juanes
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The morning bus from Valencia wheezes to a halt beside a concrete shelter decorated with mosaic grapes. Only three passengers step off. One heads straight for the co-operative winery; another shoulders a rucksack and disappears up a dirt track. The third, a British couple clutching a print-out of the Capurutxo walking route, look around for a café. There isn't one open yet. Welcome to La Font de la Figuera, population barely two thousand, elevation 553 metres, and tourist office opening hours that follow the agricultural clock.
A Town That Runs on Almonds and Diesel
La Font sits where the last wrinkles of the Iberian System flatten into the plains of La Costera. The name translates roughly as "The Fig Tree Spring," though you're more likely to meet almond blossoms than fig leaves these days. Terraced orchards press right up to the back gardens; in February the whole hillside flickers white like faulty strip-lighting. Come August the same trees rattle with pneumatic harvesters, and tractors hauling yellow trailers clog the main street. The smell of warm engine oil drifts through the open doors of the two small supermarkets—both shut between two and five, naturally.
Architecturally the place is honest rather than pretty. New render abuts crumbling stone, and the plaza's orange trees grow out of neat square holes in the concrete. The 18th-century church tower still dominates, but its shadow falls on 1980s brickwork and a metal pergola advertising a mobile-phone brand that no longer exists. What saves the scene is scale: nothing rises above three storeys, so the skyline belongs to the mountains whichever way you look.
Walking the Capurutxo – Or Turning Back
The Capurutxo loop is the reason most foreigners find the village at all. The trailhead begins opposite the cemetery, eight hundred metres above sea level already, yet the path still climbs another five hundred and fifty vertical metres in four kilometres. Locals do it before lunch; visitors often bail out at the first saddle, where the only shade is a stone hut locked with a farmer's padlock. From the summit the view opens west across the valley of the Albaida, a patchwork of vines, olives and the odd solar farm glinting like broken glass. On very clear days you can just pick out the Bay of Valencia, thirty-five kilometres away as the crow flies—though crows don't have to negotiate the snaking CV-656 afterwards.
Bring more water than you think sensible; the spring that gave the village its name is now a trickling pipe in Pijirri park, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, en route. Walking poles aren't vanity here—the descent is steep enough to make knees wobble, and the limestone gravel behaves like ball bearings under hiking boots. Phone signal vanishes after the second cattle grid, so download the map while you queue for the bus in Valencia.
Saturday Mornings and Sweet Wine
If the hike sounds masochistic, time your visit for a Saturday. The weekly market colonises Plaza Mayor from eight until two, stalls spreading out like a paper fan. One family sells nothing but honey—orange blossom, rosemary, mountain thyme—poured into rinsed gin bottles with handwritten labels. Next door an elderly couple offer three grades of almonds: soft-skin Marcona for eating, harder Valencia for stews, and cracked seconds for pigeon feed. Prices are scribbled on cardboard; they drop by fifty cents if you pay in cash and don't ask for a receipt.
The co-operative bodega opens afterwards, a hangar-sized building behind the health centre. Inside, stainless-steel tanks tower over a tasting counter staffed by whichever grower drew the short straw. The sweet red mistela is the easy crowd-pleaser—think lighter ruby port without the burn—sold in half-litre bottles that slip neatly into cabin luggage. Dry reds carry the València D.O. but taste more of sun-baked earth than fruit; they cost €3.50 a litre if you bring your own container. The staff will rinse out a plastic water bottle if you forgot, no judgement.
Fiestas Where You Are the Only Foreigner
Most years the Moros i Cristians festival lands in the first weekend of December. It is small, loud and determinedly local. Saturday afternoon: musket volleys ricochet off the school walls, smoke drifts into the branches of the Christmas lights that have been switched on prematurely. Participants spend the morning sewing gold braid onto velvet capes; by nightfall they are swaying in the sports-hall disco, swords stacked against the bar like umbrellas. Visitors are welcome, photographs too—just don't expect bilingual commentary. If you understand Valencian you'll gather that the Moors win in the morning, the Christians in the evening, and everybody wins at the bar afterwards.
Summer brings the main town fiestas in mid-August. For three days tranquillity is cancelled. A sound-check begins at eleven every morning; by midnight the decibel level competes with the agricultural machinery. Parking becomes theoretical, and every flat surface smells of diesel and frying squid. It is either the best or worst time to come—book accommodation early, bring ear-plugs, and accept that the walking trails will be empty only because everyone else is dancing.
Getting There, Getting Fed, Getting Out
Public transport exists on weekdays: Autocares Hernández runs a morning bus from Valencia's main station that arrives at 09:55, returning at 17:40. The timetable shrinks to nil on Sundays and fiesta days, so a hire car is saner. From the A-7 motorway take exit 322, then follow the CV-656 for nineteen kilometres of curves sharp enough to test caravan nerves. Petrol stations are scarce—fill up in Xàtiva unless you fancy paying mountain prices.
For food, Cal Nou is the dependable bar-restaurant on Calle Mayor. It does a three-course menú del día for €12 mid-week: gazpacho manchego (rabbit stew with paper-thin bread), followed by pork shoulder slow-cooked in sweet wine. Vegetarians get escalivada on toast, plus a lecture about local almonds. The place shuts by ten; afterwards the only option is the vending machine at the petrol pump on the edge of town.
Accommodation is limited to four guest rooms above the bakery and a rural house two kilometres out. Both are clean, cheap and used to walkers who leave at dawn. Book by phone—email replies arrive next week, if at all. Checkout is strictly before noon; the baker needs the keys to open.
La Font de la Figuera will never feature on souvenir tea-towels. It offers instead the small mercies of an agricultural town that hasn't quite decided whether tourists are useful or amusing. Turn up with sturdy boots, cash for market day, and realistic expectations of siesta hours, and the place will treat you like an unusually well-prepared neighbour. Just remember to carry water, download the map, and don't expect the fig trees to be sign-posted—they were chopped down centuries ago, but the name stuck, and names last longer than fruit.
