Chera

The first thing you notice is the temperature drop. Leave Valencia airport in shorts and by the time the car crests the last ridge before Chera the air-conditioning is off and the windows are cracked open to let in air that feels like the Brecon Beacons in late September. At 600 m above sea level the village sits high enough to escape the coastal sauna, yet it’s only 75 minutes’ drive inland – closer, in fact, than reaching most of the crowded coves on the northern Costa Blanca.

Chera’s main street is barely two cars wide and it ends abruptly at the stone wall of the 17th-century church. There is no roundabout, no tourist office, no multilingual signage pointing to a gift shop. Instead, an elderly man in a beret is watering geraniums clipped into perfect spheres outside his doorway and the only sound is the clank of the watering can against the wrought-iron balcony. This is the sort of place where the bakery still closes on Monday because, well, it always has.

The gorge that ate the afternoon

Five minutes north of the village the land falls away into the Hoces de Chera, a limestone gorge cut by the river Turia long before anyone thought to build a motorway to Madrid. A way-marked path leaves from the last street of houses, drops past an abandoned threshing floor and then zig-zags down through Aleppo pines until the valley walls rise 150 m on both sides. British walkers who have done the popular canyon at nearby Chulilla tend to describe this one as “its quieter little brother” – same orange-and-grey strata, vultures wheeling overhead, but you’re more likely to meet a local shepherd than a coach party from Torrevieja.

The full circuit is 8 km and takes about three hours if you stop to photograph every turn where the rock glows like Cheddar Gorge on a sunny afternoon. After rain the path can be slick clay; trainers are fine in high summer, but the moment the first autumn storm arrives you’ll be grateful for proper boots. Half-way down you pass a natural pool deep enough for a swim – the water is chilly even in July, yet the rocks warm up fast once you’re out, making it the cheapest spa day imaginable.

Lunch where the menu is still written in chalk

There are precisely two places to eat in the village centre, and both keep the same timetable: open 13:30–15:30 for lunch, 20:30–22:00 for supper, closed Tuesday. Turn up outside those hours and the doors stay shut, no matter how appealingly you rattle the handle. Bar Casa Paco is the marginally larger of the pair: three tables inside, another four on the pavement, radio muttering in the corner. The menú del día costs €12 and runs to three courses, bread, drink and coffee. Expect olla cherana, a thick stew of pork shoulder, chickpeas and morcilla that tastes like something your grandmother might have simmered had she grown up on the Castilian meseta. If black pudding isn’t your thing, ask for it sin morcilla when you order – the kitchen is happy to oblige, but you need to say so up front because once it’s in the pot it’s staying there.

Wine comes from Requena, 35 km back towards the motorway, and the house white is a blanco de bobal served cold in a plain tumbler. It costs €1.80 and punches well above its weight, though drivers should note the Guardia Civil like to set up a breathalyser checkpoint on the road out of the village on Sunday evenings.

Maps, masts and missing money

Chera has no cash machine. The nearest is in Requena, so fill your wallet before you leave the airport. Cards are accepted at the restaurants, but the bakery, the small grocery and the petrol pump on the edge of town are cash only. The supermarket shuts from 14:00 to 17:30 – an interval long enough to scupper anyone hoping to assemble a picnic after a morning walk. Stock up before noon or you’ll be negotiating the mountain road to the next village for a baguette.

Mobile coverage is patchy once you drop into the gorge; Vodafone seems to fare best, EE the worst. Download offline maps the night before – the footpaths are well signed, but every year a couple of British visitors end up on the wrong side of the river after following a Google dot that suddenly leaps across a cliff.

Seasons change faster than you think

Spring arrives late this high up. Almond blossom peaks in mid-March, a full month after the coastal orchards, and the first really warm walking days are late April. May and early June are the sweet spot: daylight until 21:00, wild thyme scenting the air, and the only crowds are weekenders from Valencia who melt away by Sunday teatime. July and August can touch 34 °C at midday; locals shift their routines to dawn and dusk, and sensible visitors do the same. Autumn brings the grape harvest across the plateau and the woods turn the colour of burnt toast – photographers swear the light between 16:00 and 18:00 is worth the petrol alone. Winter is sharp: frost whitens the vegetable plots in January and night temperatures drop below zero, yet the days are often luminous and the gorge trails empty. If you fancy a pre-Christmas break, pack a fleece and you’ll have the castle – yes, there is one, a ruined Moorish watchtower ten minutes above the village – entirely to yourself.

Getting there without the stress

Valencia airport is served from 12 UK airports, including Gatwick, Manchester and Edinburgh. Hire-car desks are in the terminal; the hour-long drive to Chera is almost entirely on the A-3 autopista, after which the CV-465 comarcal road climbs through olive groves and suddenly you’re in hill-country. One daily bus leaves Valencia’s estación de autobuses at 15:45, arriving 17:20, but it doesn’t run on weekends and the return leg is 07:00 Monday morning – fine for a quiet week, hopeless for a short break.

Where to stay? There are no hotels, only four self-catering cottages registered for tourism. Casa Rural El Nogal sleeps four, has a wood-burner for winter nights and costs €90 a night with a two-night minimum. Book ahead; September weekends fill early with climbing clubs from Madrid.

The honest verdict

Chera will not dazzle you with Michelin stars, Moorish palaces or nightlife that lasts beyond the last copa. What it offers instead is altitude, elbow-room and a chance to remember that Spain still moves to a rhythm set by daylight and seasons rather than tour operators. Bring cash, sturdy shoes and an appetite for stew, and the village repays you with silence broken only by church bells and the occasional goat bell echoing across the gorge. Arrive expecting souvenir tea-towels and you’ll be disappointed. Come prepared for a place that functions perfectly well without you, and you might find yourself plotting how soon you can return – ideally before everyone else realises the thermostat drops 6 °C the moment you leave the coast behind.