Siete Aguas

The thermometer drops six degrees as the A-3 motorway exit fades behind. At 700 metres above the baking coastal plain, Siete Aguas trades orange groves for stone pines and the smell of hot tarmac for something you notice only when it returns: clean air. The village name means "seven waters" but nobody counts anymore; springs leak from every limestone fold, turning the single main street into a shallow stream after heavy rain.

This is where Valencians come when the city becomes unbearable, a 45-minute escape that feels like crossing a border. On Saturday mornings the car park beside the polideportivo fills with Valencia number plates. Families unfold cool-bags and walking poles while grandparents make straight for Fuente de los Siete Caños, the stone fountain whose copper pipes run icy even in August. Fill a bottle and you have the same mineral water that once supplied the royal silk workshops of Buñol; locals swear it prevents everything from kidney stones to hangovers.

The village proper is ten minutes' walk end to end. Houses are built from the mountain itself—honey-coloured limestone blocks the size of hay bales—roofed with curved Arab tiles that collect drinking water in underground cisterns. A single pharmacy, a tiny Supercor and Bar Central with its 1970s Formica tables comprise the commercial district. No souvenir shops, no Irish bars, nobody hawking fridge magnets. The only English you will hear is between the two retired teachers from Norwich who bought a ruined masía in 2019 and are still surprised when strangers say good morning.

Above the tiled roofs the sierra rises in a saw-tooth wall. Pine needles deaden footfall on the signed path that leaves from the cemetery gate, climbing 200 metres to the Ermita de la Sang. The chapel is kept locked but the porch gives shade and a view west across the Buñol gorge, a wrinkle of chestnut and holm oak that feels like the Meseta compressed into miniature. Griffon vultures circle on thermals launched from the bare rock; listen and you can hear their wings cut the air. The circuit takes ninety minutes, requires trainers rather than boots, and delivers you back in time for lunch.

Lunch matters. The kitchen at El Candil opens at 14:00 sharp; arrive ten minutes late on Sunday and you will queue with hungry day-trippers who know the rules. The menu del día costs fourteen euros and changes with whatever Antonio finds in the market: perhaps a plate of judías blancas the size of gobstoppers, followed by conejo al ajillo strong enough to keep vampires at bay. Wine is included, poured from a plastic jug kept in the fridge and better than anything on the Ryanair flight over. Vegetarians survive on tortilla and salads; vegans should bring supplies.

Spring and autumn are kindest. In April the surrounding hills flare yellow with genista and the night temperature drops to 10 °C—bring a fleece. October brings the smell of wet earth and the first wood-smoke; mushrooms appear overnight along the forestry tracks and every bar suddenly offers revueltos de setas. Summer is workable because of the altitude, but afternoons can sit at 34 °C and the village pool charges three euros for a dip that feels essential after 13:00. Winter is sharp: bright blue skies, a wind that whistles through doorjambs, and the occasional dusting of snow that melts before lunch. The twice-daily bus from Valencia still runs, but fog on the plateau cancels it without warning.

Access without a car requires patience. Take the C-3 Cercanías to Cheste (35 minutes from Valencia-Nord) and phone the village taxi the day before—€18 if booked, €25 if you wing it. The 117 bus leaves Valencia's main station at 08:00 and 16:00, arriving fifty-five minutes later outside the Casa de Cultura. Miss it and you have four hours to kill in Cheste, a town whose claim to fame is a MotoGP circuit that falls silent for 360 days a year. With wheels the journey is simpler: motorway west, exit 345, then a twisty eight kilometres that remind you why Spanish hatchbacks have such good brakes.

Staying over means renting somebody's grandparents' house. There is no hotel; instead the ayuntamiento lists three casas rurales, all sleeping four to six, priced between €70 and €110 a night. Expect stone floors, wood-burning stoves and Wi-Fi that flickers whenever it rains. The quiet is absolute after 23:00, broken only by dogs and, in mating season, the unsettling shriek of stone martens on the rooftops.

Fiestas punch holes in the silence. The big one starts 12 August: seven days of brass bands at 08:00, paella for 800 in the sports field, and a foam party that turns the plaza into a bubble bath. Visitors are welcome but there are no glossy programmes; the schedule is taped to the bakery window and changes according to the mayor's mood. If you crave authenticity, arrive for the Día de la Cruz on 3 May, when women in black dresses balance flower-decked religious effigies through the streets and the church bell rings until the metal warps.

Walkers can stitch together longer routes. The PR-V 147 follows an old mule track west to Chiva, dropping into the gorge and out again for 14 kilometres of limestone scenery and shadeless ridge. Mountain-bikers prefer the forest road to Pedralba, 22 kilometres of steady gradient that ends beside the river Turia with cold beer at Casa Maru. Maps are free from the tourist office—one room above the pharmacy, open Tuesday and Thursday mornings, knock loudly.

The downside? Supplies are limited. The bakery sells out of bread by 11:30, the ATM works only when it recognises your card, and British mobile reception is patchy enough to make you consider smoke signals. If it rains heavily the power disappears for hours; villagers shrug and light candles. English is rarely spoken, though pointing and smiling achieves most things.

Come prepared—phrasebook, walking shoes, a bottle for the spring—and Siete Aguas offers something the coast cannot: space to hear yourself think. The village will not entertain you; it will simply let you be, cooled by altitude and the sound of water that has been running here since long before the motorway arrived.