Confrides

The bells ring at noon, not for tourists but because the baker’s tractor has stalled across the lane again. From the church steps you can watch two elderly neighbours guide him backwards while a terrier supervises. Nobody photographs it; this is simply lunchtime in Confrides, a mountain scarf knitted to the southern flank of the Sierra de Aitana, 30 km inland from Benidorm’s tower blocks yet stubbornly off their radar.

At 785 m above sea level the air is thinner, cleaner and, outside July, several degrees cooler than the coast. The village’s 297 permanent residents have no supermarket, no cash machine and only one bar that opens daily. What they do have is a stone grid of streets steep enough to loosen calves, wheat-coloured houses roofed in Arabic tile, and views south-west down the Guadalest valley that make the 25-minute corkscrew drive from the CV-770 feel worthwhile.

Stone, Slope and Silence

Confrides grew where it did because the ridge catches winter clouds that water small terraces still planted with almonds and olives. Dry-stone walls divide the plots, each no wider than a tennis court, and every spring the scent of blossom drifts through open windows along with wood smoke from stoves that stay lit until late April. The layout is practical rather than pretty: lanes narrow enough to shade mule carts, doorways painted ox-blood red to hide dust, and gutters cut straight through bedrock. Restoration has been piecemeal, so 16th-century façades sit beside 1980s brick and satellite dishes. The mix keeps the place honest; nothing feels stage-managed for weekenders.

Follow Carrer Major upwards and it spills into Plaça de l’Església, a wedge of flatness barely 20 m across. The parish church of Sant Joan Baptista closes one side, its bell tower patched after the 1829 earthquake. Services are announced by a single bronze bell; the sound carries two valleys and, on still evenings, reaches the pine forest above the cemetery. Locals treat the plaza as an outdoor living room: plastic chairs appear at dusk, someone brings a guitar, children chase cats between motorbikes. You are welcome to sit, but conversation will be in Valencian and no one switches to English just because you smiled.

Walking without Way-markers

Hiking starts where tarmac ends. A lane beside the fountain leads to the Font de la Mata, 15 minutes on a stony path that once irrigated vegetable gardens. Beyond, the track forks: left contours to the ruined Moorish castle, a scatter of walls and a watch-tower base that gives a 270-degree sweep from the bay of Altea to the white scar of the Puig Campana. Allow 45 minutes round-trip and carry water; there is no café at the top.

Fit walkers can continue east along the PR-CV 73 which climbs to the Coll de la Garga (1 100 m) and then the summit ridge of Aitana (1 558 m). The full circuit is 14 km with 800 m of ascent; in May the verges flare yellow with fennel and you share the path only with hoopoes. Winter is a different game: cloud can drop without warning, temperature can fall to 2 °C and the same trail becomes a stream of red mud. Snow falls most years, rarely deep enough for sledging but sufficient to strand rear-wheel-drive hire cars. Chains are not compulsory, yet turning round on a 15% gradient with a sheer drop focuses the mind.

Shorter loops head west through almond terraces to the hamlet of L’Orxa, where an 18th-century oil press has been converted into a private house whose owner will show the grinding stones if you ask politely. The return follows an old irrigation ditch alive with green frogs; the whole figure-of-eight takes two hours and deposits you back at the bar in time for a late breakfast of coffee and ensaïmada.

What Turns Up on the Table

Meals are dictated by the day, not the diner. Bar Casa Paco posts a hand-written sheet at 09:00 listing what will be served from 13:30; when it runs out, doors close. Expect pilotes de dacsa – golf-ball-sized pork and beef meatballs bound with sweet-corn, simmered in tomato and mild nora-pepper sofrito. Vegetarians can request olleta de blat, a thick wheat-and-bean stew that tastes better than it sounds, especially if you crumble in local almonds for texture. Bread comes from Benidorm bakeries because the village oven shut in 1987, but oil is pressed 8 km away and smells of cut grass. House wine is a young bobal served in 250 ml glass jars; two jars equal a bottle and cost €3.50. Monday is still the traditional closing day for both village eateries, so ring ahead or stock up in Guadalest where the last ATM also lives.

Festivals without Fireworks Budget

San Joan in late June turns the plaza into an open-air dining room: long tables, paper tablecloths, grilled sardines and a raffle whose top prize is a ham. Visitors are handed a plate and expected to muck in with washing-up. At midnight a quartet strikes up pasodobles; by 01:30 someone produces a bag of amateur fireworks that fizz skyward from the church roof, setting off a neighbour’s car alarm. The whole event costs €15 including wine, and proceeds fund the school bus.

August brings the summer fiesta: foam party in the football pitch, outdoor paella for 200 cooked by the mayor’s cousin, and a disco that finishes at 05:00 because the DJ’s uncle needs the speakers back for Sunday mass. Noise-sensitive guests should book a room on the northern edge of the village; the old schoolhouse B&B has stone walls 60 cm thick and double glazing.

Christmas is low-key: a living nativity in the castle ruins, mulled wine made from Monastrell and home-made almond nougat sold in 100 g waxed paper. It is freezing, magical and almost entirely local – coaches of tourists never climb this high in December.

When to Come, When to Stay Away

Late March to early June is prime hiking season: daytime 18 °C, nights cool enough for sleep, wild orchids along the paths. September repeats the trick with added grape harvest; the Cooperativa Nostrada at neighbouring Benimassot offers free tours and sells last year’s vintage in 5-litre plastic jerrycans. July and August are hot; start walks at dawn and expect 30 °C by 11:00. The village pool (€2 day pass) is fed by mountain spring water so cold it makes feet ache – bliss at 15:00, torture at 09:00.

Avoid Easter Saturday unless you enjoy traffic jams: half of Alicante province drives to Guadalest for the passion play, clogging the single access road. Likewise, October 12 (national holiday) turns the CV-770 into a tailback of hatchbacks hunting autumn colour. Confrides has no hotels, only four rental houses and the schoolhouse B&B; book months ahead for these peak weekends or stay down in Callosa and drive up early.

The Honest Exit

Confrides will not change your life. It offers no Michelin stars, no souvenir snow domes, no flamenco floor show. What it does give is a yardstick for how quietly the Spanish interior still lives when the coast erupts into stag-party foam. Come for the walking, stay for the bread-and-oil breakfast eaten on a wall while a shepherd whistles his dogs across the opposite slope. Leave before you expect Wi-Fi to work and remember to fill the petrol tank; the next garage is 18 kilometres downhill, and the mountain does not care how late your flight is.