Lorcha

The morning mist clings to the almond terraces above Lorcha like breath on cold glass. By nine o'clock it has burned away, revealing a village that appears to have grown from the rock itself—stone houses terraced into the southern flank of the Sierra de Mariola, their roofs the same grey-brown as the crags behind them. At 600 metres above the Mediterranean, the air carries a clarity that makes distant ridges seem close enough to touch, and the silence is broken only by the clink of a farmer's ladder against an olive tree.

This is not the postcard Spain of coast and paella. Lorcha sits forty kilometres inland from the nearest beach at Dénia, separated by a winding CV-700 that climbs through citrus groves before the road levels onto the high plateau. What you get instead of sand is altitude: cool dawns even in August, winters sharp enough to dust the upper peaks with snow, and a landscape where thyme and rosemary grow wild between the limestone outcrops. The village's 587 permanent residents have learned to read these slopes; they know that when the almond blossom arrives in late February, there are still six weeks of possible frost ahead.

The grid of streets is small enough to cross in five minutes, yet stubbornly vertical. Calle San Miguel rises so steeply that the 18th-century church at the top seems to lean backwards, its simple stone bell-tower designed more for durability than grandeur. Inside, the single nave smells of candle wax and mountain damp; the fresco above the altar was retouched in 1947 after cracks appeared during the Civil War. No audioguades, no gift shop—just a notice board listing the week's deaths and the price of the perpetual flame (€12 per candle, payable to the sacristan who lives two doors down).

Life clusters around water here. The Font de la Vila, five minutes' walk below the houses, issues from a limestone fissure at a steady 14°C. Women still arrive with plastic jugs to collect drinking water; their grandfathers once washed mules in the stone trough now mossy and cracked. On summer evenings the spot becomes an improvised social club—plastic chairs appear, someone produces a bottle of mistela, and conversations drift across the pool in Valencian sprinkled with agricultural slang that even Castilian speakers struggle to follow.

Walking tracks radiate from the fountain like spokes. The PR-CV 39 heads east towards Castell de Castells, a six-hour loop that crosses the shoulder of the 1,400-metre Montcabrer before dropping into the next valley. Markers are painted white and yellow on rock faces; between February and May the path edges glow with orchids and wild peonies. Take water—there are no bars after the last almond grove, and mobile reception dies with equal certainty. Cyclists favour the forest road that follows the old Serpis riverbed south to Villalonga; the gradient rarely exceeds 6%, but the 25-kilometre return ride still demands respect if the day has tipped 30°C.

Food arrives seasonally. In late autumn tractors tow trailers of pale green olives to the cooperative press on the outskirts of town; the oil that flows is grassy and peppery, bottled in one-litre plastic containers that cost €4 at the door. Nothing is labelled organic—chemicals are expensive and the slopes too steep for large machinery, so most groves qualify by default. During the September fiestas in honour of San Miguel, volunteers set up long tables in the plaça and dish out gaspatxo de montaña, a hearty stew of rabbit, beans and wild mushrooms that bears no relation to the chilled tomato soup tourists know. Tickets sell out days in advance; visitors are welcome but expected to buy their own beer from the makeshift bar under the plane trees.

Winter brings a different rhythm. When the tramontana wind howls down from Aragón, temperatures can dip to minus five; pipes freeze, the single guesthouse closes, and the daily bus from Alcoy reduces its schedule to three return trips. Those who stay light wood-burning stoves with pruned almond branches and gather at Bar Mariola for breakfast—thick hot chocolate and toña, a spongy brioche scented with aniseed. The bar's television blares regional news; conversation stops only when the lottery numbers appear, a communal ritual that matters more than any weather forecast.

Getting here requires patience. There is no train; the nearest station is 35 kilometres away in Alcoy, itself an hour from Alicante airport by coach. Car hire remains the practical choice, though the final approach involves tight hairpins where encountering a delivery van forces both vehicles into creative reversing. Parking is mercifully simple—find the plaça with the stone cross and leave the car; nobody charges and nothing is more than a ten-minute walk away.

Accommodation is limited to four rooms above the bakery, spotlessly clean but without air-conditioning; guests receive a key to the side door and instructions not to slam it after midnight. Booking ahead is essential during Easter and the September fiesta, less because of demand than because the owner spends July and August with her daughter in Gandía and forgets to check messages. Alternative beds exist in rural casas scattered across the hillside, reached by dirt tracks best tackled in something sturdier than a Fiat 500.

Evenings end early. By ten o'clock the plaça is empty save for a cat stalking moths around the streetlight. Walk to the mirador at the cemetery gate and the valley falls away into darkness; only the glow of Ontinyent thirty kilometres distant reminds you that cities still exist. Above, the Milky Way arches across the sky with a brilliance impossible nearer the coast. The mountains are breathing—cool air sinking, warm air rising—and for a moment Lorcha feels less like a place you visit than a place that lets you stay, provided you accept its terms: slow feet, open eyes, and no expectation of entertainment beyond what the altitude and the seasons provide.