Redován

The morning bus from Alicante drops you at a junction where the CV-921 meets a lane of citrus trees. Nobody meets you. The driver shrugs: "Redován? Cross the road, follow the scent of orange blossom." He is not joking. Between February and April the whole village drifts on a cloud of neroli that works better than any sat-nav.

Redován sits thirty-two metres above sea level, far enough from the Costa Blanca to escape the condo-and-cocktail circuit, low enough to feel the Mediterranean heat but without the sea breeze. That matters in July, when the thermometer flirts with 40 °C and the only sensible place is the shaded café terrace on Plaza del Ayuntamiento, where housewives argue over the price of lemons and the waiter brings glasses of iced horchata faster than you can ask.

A grid of agricultural streets

The town planner’s brief must have been simple: straight streets, enough room for a tractor and a donkey, nothing taller than the church. Iglesia de San Miguel Arcángel, finished in the eighteenth century on the remains of a mosque, still dictates the compass points. Its tower bell strikes the quarters with the confidence of a place that has forgotten the coast is only 25 km away. Inside, the air smells of beeswax and the stone is cool even at midday; step out and you are back in the glare, where geraniums drip from first-floor balconies and elderly men wear cloth caps as if the twentieth century never ended.

There is no epic architecture, no selfie-magnet façade. Instead you get continuity: the same families have been tilling the huerta since the Reconquista, and the bakery opposite the church still uses an almond-scented starter that the owner claims is older than Franco. Ask for pasteles de almendra while they are warm; they collapse into marzipan crumbs and justify the detour on their own.

Working fields, not viewpoints

Redován’s real museum is outdoors. From the southern edge of town a lattice of farm tracks fans out between irrigation ditches built by the Moors. Orange trees dominate, but look closer and you will see kaki persimmons, loquats and the occasional rogue artichoke. Farmers greet walkers with a nod; nobody charges an entry fee. The easiest circuit heads south-east to the hamlet of Venta de Cañizares (3 km), where the bar opens at seven in the morning for tractor drivers and keeps a bottle of mistela on the counter for anyone who arrives after a wet January hike.

Spring and autumn give the kindest temperatures—18-24 °C—and the colours change weekly: white blossom, green fruit, golden skins against black irrigation water. Summer walking is possible only at dawn; by ten the dust rises and shade is mythical. Winter is mild but can feel raw when the cierzo wind sneaks down the Segura valley; bring a fleece and expect flooded ditches after heavy rain.

Rice, rabbit and the 4 pm trap

Food follows the agricultural ledger. Thursday is arroz con conejo day in most households, cooked outdoors on a gas ring big enough to baptise a baby. Restaurants do the same dish at weekends, though visitors squeamish about snail shells can ask for "sin caracoles, por favor". Expect to pay €12–14 for a cauldron that feeds two; wine is extra and usually a young Bobal from nearby Utiel that punches above its price.

The culinary scene is small—four sit-down places, a couple of tapas bars—so do not bank on a late lunch. Kitchens close around 4 pm and reopen after 8. If you arrive in the dead zone, the bakery will make you a sandwich of longaniza sausage on doorstop bread for €3; eat it in the plaza and watch the village reboot when the school disgorges its cargo at quarter past five.

When the fireworks light the oranges

Fiestas here are family affairs amplified by gunpowder. Fallas in mid-March means a papier-mâché ninot parked beside the church for a week, then torched on the night of 19 March while the brass band plays something that sounds suspiciously like the theme from EastEnders. September honours San Miguel with a medieval fair: locals in hand-sewn tunics, stalls selling honey-soaked torrijas, and a procession where the statue of the archangel is carried past the agricultural co-op as tractors are blessed with splashes of holy water. It is quirky, sincere and mercifully short on tour buses.

Getting stuck, or not

Redován has no railway. The nearest station is Orihuela-Miguel Hernández, 10 km away on the Alicante–Murcia line. From Alicante airport (hourly flights from Gatwick, Luton, Manchester, £35–£120 return) a pre-booked shuttle to Redován costs €55–70; a taxi from the rank is €90 if you forget to negotiate. Car hire is sensible: the AP-7 toll is €6.95 each way, exit 79, then ten minutes across flat fields. Parking is free and usually within 200 m of wherever you want to be.

Accommodation within the village is limited to one rural house, Casa Rural La Finca, three doubles around a courtyard pool, €90 a night with breakfast. Most visitors base themselves in Orihuela where Melia’s Palacio de Tudemir occupies a converted episcopal palace; doubles from €110, secure parking, ten-minute drive to Redován. Book early for Fallas and Easter—Spanish families fill the region.

The honest verdict

Redován will not change your life. It offers no sea view, no Michelin stars, no ancient castle on a crag. What it does provide is an unfiltered shot of Valencian huerta life: the smell of blossom, the clack of dominoes under a mulberry tree, the taste of an orange that was attached to a branch that morning. Come if you are passing between Murcia and Alicante, or if you have tired of coastal Britain-in-the-sun enclaves. Stay a night, walk the farm tracks, eat rice that was grown in the next field. Then leave the scent of neroli on your clothes and head back to the coast, where the beaches are wider but the oranges come from a supermarket.