Muro de Alcoy

The 9 a.m. freight train from Alcoy wheezes uphill and deposits three passengers beside an almond-loading depot. From the platform, the town above looks like a stack of mismatched shoeboxes glued to a limestone ridge. That first 2-kilometre climb—past irrigation channels, barking dogs and a roadside shrine to the Virgin whose candles have melted in the sun—tells you most of what you need to know: Muro de Alcoy is not in the habit of making life easy for anyone, including itself.

Altitude 410 metres, average annual rainfall double that of coastal Alicante, winter nights cold enough to frost the windscreens of the farmers’ white vans: the climate here is mountain, not Mediterranean. In April the wind still carries a blade; in August the heat is dry and thin, bearable only because the streets throw shade like narrow ravines. Bring a jumper for May mornings and an appetite for lunch at 15:00—no one eats earlier.

Brick, Loom and Sunday Market Scramble

The old factories are the first thing you notice once the gradient levels out. Nineteenth-century mills, their windows tall as church doors, line the ravine of the Río Seta. Most are empty, a few store agricultural machinery, one has been gutted and reborn as the small but dogged Textile Museum (open Tue–Sat 10:00–14:00, entry €2). Inside, a 1920s mechanical loom still thumps out sample cloth twice a week, operated by former mill girls who now volunteer as guides. They will show you pay packets stamped in pounds, shillings and pesetas—Muro once exported cotton tape to Manchester and collar interfacing to London shirt factories.

Beyond the river, the town arranges itself around the Plaza de la Iglesia. The church tower is Baroque, the side chapels are Gothic, the paving stones are lethal when wet. On Sunday mornings the square becomes an extension of the weekly market: elderly women from inland hamlets spread almonds on rice-sacks, a baker from Cocentaina unloads trays of coca de muro—a thin, oily bread topped with tuna and slow-cooked onion—while teenagers queue for €1.50 cartons of horchata as if it were the last bus home. By 13:30 the stalls fold; by 14:00 the baker has sold the final piece and is reversing his van down a street designed for donkeys. Monday, by decree of local habit, is dead.

Walking Out: Carrascal and the Long-Distance Ghosts

Three waymarked trails leave from the top edge of town. The shortest (PR-CV 55, 5 km, 200 m ascent) corkscrews into the Carrascal de la Font Roja, a nature reserve of holm oak and maple that smells of damp rock and rosemary. Wild-boar prints appear in the mud after rain; Griffon vultures orbit on thermals rising from the Polop valley. The full GR-7, which links Gibraltar with the Pyrenees, passes the reserve information hut: follow the red-and-white flashes east and you can walk to Alcoy in three hours, descending through olive terraces and abandoned casetas where 19th-century shepherds once distilled aguardiente.

Cyclists arrive with compact gearing and realistic expectations. The road to Cocentaina climbs 300 metres in 6 km, past a cement works that looks like a James Bond set at dusk. The reward is a 12-kilometre ridge ride with the Mediterranean glittering 40 km away and only the occasional tractor for company. Carry two bottles—mountain springs are seasonal and cafés are thin on the ground once you leave the valley floor.

Fireworks, Bagpipes and the Smell of Gunpowder

Muro’s fiesta calendar is democratically noisy. San Juan at the end of June fills the old quarter with cordà—a daytime firework run that leaves the streets drifting with acrid smoke and teenagers comparing scorch marks on their trainers. Moros y Cristianos in early September is a scaled-down cousin of Alcoy’s blockbuster: the same silk banners, the same dulzaina bagpipes, but you can actually see the embroidery without standing on a plastic chair. Budget travellers note: accommodation prices stay flat; the only hotel in town (twelve rooms, no lift) simply hands out ear-plugs at reception.

If you prefer your explosions edible, order pericana in any bar claiming kitchen credentials: salt-cod, dried pepper and olive oil warmed until the fish frays into smoky threads. It tastes stronger than it looks; mop it up with the coarse bread the waiter will slap on your table unasked. Vegetarians get olleta, a mountain stew of beans, chard and saffron that costs €7 a portion and arrives in a bowl the size of a satellite dish. House wine is served in 250 ml glass jars—expect change from a ten-euro note even after coffee and peladillas (honey-coated almonds).

Getting Here, Getting Out, Getting Fed

Alicante airport is 60 km south; the drive up the A-7 and CV-70 takes an hour unless a lorry has overturned at the Tollos bend. There is no direct public transport from the airport—rent a car or take the airport bus to Alicante station, then the train to Alcoy and the hourly La Alcoyana bus to Muro. The last bus leaves Alcoy at 21:15; miss it and a taxi costs €18.

Trains from Valencia involve a change at Xàtiva and a journey time of two-and-a-half hours through lemon groves and tunnelled sierras—scenic, but not fast. The local station is technically Muro-Cocentaina, 2 km below town; no buses meet the trains, so ring Taxi Muro (+34 965 38 10 10) the day before. They speak Valencian first, Spanish second, English hardly at all.

Where to sleep: the twelve-room Hotel Reconquista on Calle Mayor has beds from €45 including breakfast (strong coffee, ensaimada, cigarettes on the terrace). The only alternative is an apartment rental—expect Wi-Fi that forgets passwords and neighbours who start pruning at dawn.

The Honest Verdict

Muro de Alcoy will never feature on a Costa package leaflet. The silence after lunch is absolute, the car park by the river floods in October, and if you arrive on Monday you will eat crisps for dinner. Yet the place works: textiles turned to almonds, almonds turned to cycling tourism, and somehow the terraces stay ploughed, the bars stay cheap, the old women still gossip under the church portico. Come with walking boots, a phrasebook and realistic expectations of mountain weather. Leave before the fiesta if you hate loud bangs, or stay right through it if you believe Spain makes more sense when you can smell the gunpowder.