Villanueva de Castellón (Castelló)

The irrigation water arrives at four o'clock. Not that anyone checks a watch – the timing is older than the mobile phone masts that now rise above the orange groves. In Villanueva de Castellón, thirty metres above sea level and forty-five minutes south of Valencia, the Muslim-era canals still dictate the day's rhythm. Gates lift, water murmurs, and the scent of wet earth drifts across streets where neighbours stand discussing last night's fútbol results.

This is not the Valencia of weekend-break brochures. The Ribera Alta district keeps factory hours, not holiday ones. Tractors park beside the 1960s church of San Pedro Apóstol as confidently as any worshipper's hatchback. The priest's lunchtime sermon competes with mechanical harvesters reversing outside the arrocería, where a three-course menú del día – bread and half-bottle of house wine included – costs €11.50. No one apologises for the noise; agriculture here is religion enough.

Walk the grid of plain, whitewashed houses and you sense the village sizing you up. Café-bars open onto the pavement without theme-park trimmings. Locals read the paper over carajillos – coffee laced with brandy – while the barman keeps an eye on the irrigation channel running past his bins. Order a beer before 11 a.m. and you'll get the glass that hasn't yet reached the dishwasher; there aren't enough visitors to justify polishing for show.

Yet the place rewards patience. Late afternoon, when the heat softens and the citrus perfume thickens, the streets belong to strollers. Grandmothers fan themselves outside the Ermita de San Roque, its small bell tower perched slightly uphill as if keeping watch against plague – the saint's original remit. Teenagers loop the same circuit on bikes they've ridden since primary school. Conversation drifts across low roofs; privacy is respected, but no one is invisible.

The Geography of Oranges and Rice

Flat land has its own drama here. From the southern edge of town the view unrolls like a green-and-gold chessboard: oranges, then rice paddies, then more oranges. The Júcar River, broad and slow, marks the boundary between provinces and irrigation turns. Drive five kilometres east and you pass from Valencian citrus to Albacete cereals almost before the radio retunes. Cyclists love the lanes precisely because nothing interrupts the horizon except a heron lifting from a drainage ditch.

Winter brings mist that pools between the rows, turning headlights amber at 3 p.m. Summer is a different contract: 40 °C by lunchtime, cicadas screaming, the smell of hot rubber from cars parked too close to the kerb. August visitors should plan like farmers – up at dawn for the Saturday market, siesta through the furnace hours, re-emerge after eight when the squares fill with plastic chairs and trays of ice-cold tigernut horchata. Even the dogs know the schedule.

Rain, when it arrives in April, is theatrical. Dry canals refill overnight; mud the colour of builder's tea smears across roads built without drains. The village WhatsApp group – more efficient than any tourist office – pings warnings: "Calle San José underwater, take Calle Colón instead." By morning the water has vanished, absorbed into the groves whose blossom will perfume the air for the next three weeks. British hay-fever sufferers note: azahar is stronger than Mayfair pollen count.

Fiestas that Belong to the Calendar, Not the Tour Operator

San Pedro's day, the last weekend in June, turns the agricultural timetable into street theatre. Morning mass ends with the band blasting pasodobles as they march directly to the bar. By 2 p.m. the plaza holds 800 diners at long tables: rabbit paella, sangria in detergent buckets, toddlers asleep under folding chairs. At midnight fairground rides light up the football pitch; teenage couples queue for bumper cars while their parents gamble the price of a tractor tyre on truc – a Valencian card game that looks like poker but sounds like politics.

January brings San Antonio Abad and the blessing of animals. Farmers lead horses, cage birds, even one reluctant llama past a brazier of rosemary smoke behind the church. The priest's robe smells of bonfire for days. Children clutch newly purchased hamsters; a British visitor once tried to queue with a Labrador only to be told the ceremony is "for working beasts, not pets with passports." The dog still got a discreet splash of holy water.

Eating What the Season (and the Menu) Dictates

Forget tasting menus. Local restaurants list whatever the wholesale market delivered at dawn. Arroz caldoso – soupy rice with beans and pork ribs – appears on Wednesdays because that's when the butcher receives collar, the fatty cut that flavours the stock. Fridays mean bacalao, salt cod resurrected in tomato and pepper sauce; the recipe travels home with Valencian builders who learned it on coastal contracts. Vegetarians get artichokes, broad beans, spinach stewed with almonds: peasant food elevated by thirty days of uninterrupted sunshine.

The best value sits on the whiteboard outside Bar Central: "Menú 9,50 €". Three courses, carafe of wine, bread. The wine is bulk Valencian bobal – chilled in summer, room temperature in winter – and tastes better than anything poured by the glass on the cathedral square in Valencia. Pudding is usually flan; if you're lucky, the owner's wife has made her mother's pumpkin fritters, dusted with aniseed sugar. Ask for the recipe and she'll write it on the back of a betting slip, measurements in coffee cups.

Getting Here, Staying Sensible

Girona airport is not the gateway – ignore the British reviews that place Castelló beside the Costa Brava. From Valencia Manises airport take the A-7 towards Alicante, exit at Alzira, follow the CV-50 for twenty minutes. Public buses leave Valencia's main station at 07:15 and 15:30 weekdays, return at 13:45 and 19:30. Miss the evening coach and a taxi costs €70; better to check into the forty-room Hotel Xàtiva in nearby Alzira and catch the morning market.

Accommodation inside the village is limited: two guesthouses above bakery shops, one modern hostel catering to agricultural students. Rooms cost €35–55, including breakfast of sponge cake and industrial coffee. The smarter move is day-tripping – combine orange-grove cycling with an afternoon in Xàtiva's hilltop castle, then retreat to Valencia's beaches for sea breeze and a proper gin-tonic.

When to Cut Your Losses

Come in orange-blossom season (late March) and you might forgive the absence of boutique hotels. Arrive mid-July and the heat will question your life choices. If the irrigation channel outside your guesthouse is dry at 5 p.m. something has broken; the smell will remind you by morning. And remember: this is a place where shops still close between 14:00 and 17:00 – not for siesta, but because the owners have fields to spray before sunset.

Castellón offers no postcard perfection, no Instagram peak. What it delivers is Spain running on local time: bread delivered warm at eight, tractors reversing at ten, the priest's bell competing with the football whistle at eleven. Stay long enough to recognise the butcher's dog, and the village might just recognise you back. Then again, the 15:30 bus to Valencia always leaves on schedule – sometimes that's comfort enough.