Planes

The bell tower of San Bautista pokes above the terracotta roofs like a compass needle, visible long before you reach Planes. At 472 metres up the flank of El Comtat, the village doesn’t shout for attention; it lets the valley do the talking. Olive and almond terraces drop away to the west, while the Serpis river glints somewhere far below. This is Alicante province turned inside-out: no sand, no sangría strips, just stone lanes that still remember Moorish surveyors and a population that barely fills two double-decker buses.

A Grid That Was Never Straight

Planes grew sideways rather than upwards, pinning itself to a ridge for drainage and defence. The result is a casco where every street tilts, narrows, then tilts again. Houses are mortared from local limestone the colour of yesterday’s cream, roofed with Arabic tiles whose edges curl like stale toast. Iron balconies carry geraniums in winter and drying peppers in summer; wooden doors have speakeasy hatches big enough for a wine bottle but not for an ego. Nothing here was built for coaches or cruise crowds, which explains the refreshing absence of souvenir shops. If you want a fridge magnet, you’ll have to make do with the metallic rasp of swallows overhead.

Give yourself forty minutes to drift from the church plaza to the Fuente del Molino. The fountain still feeds a trough where women once slapped sheets against stone; the water runs so cold that condensation beads on the pipe even in July. Above it, the lavadero forms a shallow concrete amphitheatre where gossip used to echo louder than the church bell. Stand here at dusk and you’ll understand why older residents claim the village had two centres: one for prayer, one for washing.

Eating Up the Slope

Valencian cookbooks tend to stop at the rice belt, but the mountains keep writing chapters. In Planes, lunch arrives in clay dishes that could double as building materials. Arroz al horno arrives bulbous with pork rib, black pudding and chickpeas, the top layer baked to a chewy licence plate. Gachas dulces, a sweet porridge of flour, milk and anise, is winter currency: order it on a chilly March afternoon and the bar will treat you like a returning cousin. The local butcher, Francisco Sirera, still stuffs his own longanizas with mountain rosemary; buy a coil to take home and he’ll wrap it in white paper like a 1950s parcel.

Vegetarians do better than expected. Terraced gardens above the village supply onions tight as cricket balls, and tomatoes that actually taste of tomato. A half-moon of goats’ cheese from the cooperative at neighbouring Muro costs three euros and smells faintly of thyme. Pair it with a baguette from Forn de Pa on Calle Mayor and you have a picnic that costs less than a London coffee.

Tracks That Start at the Doorstep

The CV-700 ends at the village, so traffic noise dissolves into cicada hiss. From the last lamppost, the PR-CV 82 footpath climbs through rosemary scrub to the Ermita de San Antonio, twenty minutes up. The hermitage sits on a sandstone bluff ringed by dry-stone walls; someone has left a plastic chair inside for the view. On clear days you can clock Alcoy’s industrial chimneys to the north and, south-west, the blink of the Mediterranean 35 kilometres away. Bring a windproof: the altitude difference means Planes can be five degrees cooler than the coast, and the breeze has a banker’s honesty.

Keener walkers can stitch together a loop south-east into the Sierra de Mariola. The full circuit to the snow wells and back is 16 km, but a 6 km there-and-back to the Font de la Foia still delivers limestone scarps, griffon vultures and the smell of heated pine. Yellow waymarks are faded, so download the track before you set off; phone signal drops in every valley. Summer hiking is best finished by 11 a.m.; after that the sun treats shade as optional.

When the Village Throws Open Its Doors

Planes does not do year-round performance. January brings San Antonio Abad: at dawn, villagers drag garden tractors, spaniels and the occasional sheep to the church for a waft of incense and a splash of holy water. Smoke from roadside bonfires drifts through almond blossom, and the priest looks unfazed when a billy goat nibbles his cassock. June’s fiestas patronales revolve around San Bautista, with late-night verbenas where cider costs €1.50 a cup and grandparents dance fandangos until the generators cough. The August fair is smaller—think inflatable castles, a foam machine and one travelling tapas stall that does a roaring trade in fried squid rolls.

Come at any other time and the calendar is refreshingly blank. That is the point. Planes is a base camp for doing nothing loudly: read on a bench, track the passage of the sun across the stone, argue about whether the church bell rings twice or three times an hour.

Getting Here, Staying Sane, Leaving

Alicante airport to Planes takes ninety minutes by car: AP-7 to Alcoy, then the CV-700, a road that coils like a dropped Slinky. The final 12 km averages a bend every twenty seconds; if you suffer from motion sickness, sit forward and watch the white line. Bus enthusiasts can reach Alcoy from Alicante in an hour, but the onward service to Planes is a school run that leaves at 14:10 and returns at 07:00 next day—fine if you fancy a sleepover with the parish priest, less so for a day trip. Hire cars start at about £30 a day in low season; fuel is cheaper than Britain but motorway tolls add €9 each way.

Accommodation is limited to four village houses registered as tourist lets, sleeping four to six, priced €80–€120 a night. None has a pool; the mountains are the air-conditioning. Book through the regional tourism site rather than multinational platforms—owners save commission and usually chuck in a bottle of local wine. Breakfast provisions arrive in a wicker basket: fresh milk in a glass bottle, still warm sourdough, and a handwritten note reminding you the baker closes at noon.

The Honest Verdict

Planes will not change your life. It lacks a beach, a Michelin plaque, even a proper supermarket. What it offers instead is scale: the chance to feel time stretch to fit the landscape rather than the other way round. If that sounds too slow, stay on the coast. If it sounds like the pause you didn’t know you needed, pack walking shoes and a healthy appetite. The bell tower will show you the way in; the smell of rosemary on the evening breeze will let you know when it’s time to leave.