A Wee Holiday In Buñol And Chulilla

Thankfully we managed to get a short break away before October crept up on us. We always try and have a mini holiday at this time of year. Pep’s birthday falls at the end of September, there isn’t quite as much work in the “huerta” and the new term at Pep’s music school is just around the corner so what better time to charge the batteries after a busy summer.

When my mum and I owned the shop in Orba, one of our customers would often talk to me about different walking routes. One day he mentioned they’d been on a short holiday to a town inland from Valencia called Chulilla, saying it was a beautiful area and that I should go and check it out for myself.

I’d almost forgotten about it until recently when Pep and I were studying the map for places to visit which were in the Valencian Community. Googling “the prettiest towns in the Valencia province”, many a blog states Chulilla as one of it’s candidates. At only an hour and forty five minutes drive from Benissa (now the motorway is free, hooray!) we thought it the place to go for our mini vacation.

Whilst searching the net for different walking routes around Chulilla I came across Buñol, the town famous for the yearly Tomatina festival (except this year, of course). I’ve never been to this event and I doubt I ever will, I can think of better ways to use up copious amounts of tomatoes.

The first one is obviously not my photo. It’s just for those who don’t know what the festival is all about. The second one is a photo we took of a house in Buñol that, for some reason, makes me think that the owner is rather proud of the festival

What I didn’t know is that Buñol also has some beautiful walking routes quite close to the town. So we booked one night in a cheap hotel near the centre before our four night’s stay in Chulilla. Any excuse to make the holiday slightly longer.

From now on this post will be mostly photos we took of our stay in these two towns. Between us we took 750 photos!! Don’t worry, they’re not all on here, I don’t want to bore you too much. We’re not the best of photographers but I’m hoping that you’ll get an idea of the glorious scenery we encountered on our walks. The photos don’t do it justice though, it’s impossible for me to capture what the eye sees, however much I try.

First off, our short stay in Buñol. The town’s ok but nothing too special. It has a castle in the old town which is quite unique as there are houses that people live in inside the castle walls. It’s pretty well-preserved and is worth having a stroll around. There are also some nice views of the town from it’s turrets.

*Part of the castle and the view from one of the towers of Buñol’s old town. If you google “castillo de Buñol” you’ll see some better pics.*

I’m sure there is some interesting history regarding the castle but Pep and I are more interested in walking in nature. And seeing as we were only there for 24 hours we had to make the most of it. Here are a few of the pictures we took on our routes. I’ll explain a bit about them below.

On our first day we came across an idyllic natural pool (first four photos), one that the locals use and we only stumbled upon by chance as it’s not signposted. It’s called “El Paraíso” and I don’t think they want us tourists finding it. I can’t say I blame them.

After a quick walk alongside the river Buñol (photos 5, 6, 7 and 8) we did a shortish circular route, part of the “Ruta Del Agua”, visiting the “Charco Mañán” (photos 9 and 10), followed by the “Cueva Del Turche” (photos 11, 12 and 13). It’s all beautiful but this last one is absolutely breathtaking, you can’t quite believe what you’re seeing. Walking through the “campo”, you’re certainly not expecting to come across a 20 metre waterfall.

The following day we visited the “Cueva Del Turche” again, mainly to make sure it hadn’t been a dream. We then continued to do the rest of the “Ruta Del Agua”, which took us above the waterfall to the “Mirador Del Turche” and to dozens of small natural rock pools (photos 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19). It was a great place to take off my Converse platform boots (not the ideal walking attire) and refresh my feet. The water was freezing, despite the outside temperature being 28º in the shade.

We continued to the Cueva De Las Palomas (photos 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24), another glorious spot, waterfall included, before we had to sprint back to Buñol for lunch because we had a table booked in a local restaurant. We really should have taken a picnic with us instead, we would have had more time to enjoy the sites.

After lunch we drove to Chulilla, which is about an hour away from Buñol. It’s a small village, there are only a couple of small shops and a handful of restaurants. The latter were all closed while we were there, most of them only open at the weekends out of season and our stay was from Monday to Friday. Typical.

We were told by the locals that September is a particularly bad month for eating out, a couple of the restaurants were even closed for holidays. But still, we’d rented a small “casa rural” so we thankfully had a kitchen to prepare our meals. We also found a couple of restaurants a few kilometres away, more on one of them at the end of this post.

Chulilla is a haven for walkers and rock climbers alike (photo 47 shows different rock-climbing routes). There are various walking routes and we tried to do as many as possible in the time we had. We’re not into rock climbing though, perish the thought. I once dated a rock climber who tried numerous times to get me to go with him. I would do anything for love but I won’t do that (sorry again, getting cornier).

Here are a few hundred photos (just kidding. Well, sort of) of our visit to this quaint village. I’ll explain a little bit about them afterwards.

Photos 1 to 5 are different parts and views of Chulilla. There is a castle above the town which is open 24 hours a day. Because of this though it’s in a bit of a state and is certainly not well-preserved. It’s also a bit dangerous if you have children with you as there are sheer drops from some of the castle walls with no barriers to stop you from falling over the edge (photo 44 shows the drop from the castle windows). You’ll get some pretty good views from up there mind you, so it’s worth having a wander round.

One of the most popular walking routes is the Ruta De Los Calderones (photos 6 through to 28), a circular route which takes you on a trail down the canyon by the river Turia, against sheer cliffs (rock-climbers paradise) and over two hanging bridges (one 15 metres above the river, the other only about 5 metres).

The bridges were first built in 1950 by the workers who were building the Embalse (Dam) De Loriguilla . These workers lived in the town and built the bridges to shorten the distance they had to walk daily. In 1957 the bridges were destroyed by a flood and were only rebuilt in 2013, mainly to bring tourism to the area. (Better explanation in photo 6).

This route continues along the river until you reach the dam. There, after crossing the long bridge we wound our way through the mountains, back to Chulilla. There are some cave paintings along the route (photo 27) although I couldn’t make head nor tail of them. It’s a great walk and takes around 3 and a half hours plus stops.

Another spot to visit is the “Charco Azul”, a turquoise natural pool set amongst even more sheer cliffs. This is on a much shorter route (photos 29 to 40) but is still very scenic and definitely worth seeing. You used to be able to walk around the right side of the pool as there are wooden planks attached to the rock (photo 33), also used by workers years ago, but they look a bit too deteriorated now to chance it. Although people still do, we didn’t bother.

Walking back to Chulilla from the Charco Azul Pep spotted a “bolet” on one of the carob trees (photo 41 and 42). We had to rush home, grab a knife and a bag and go back and cut it off. It got brought back to Benissa and ended up being eaten for lunch.

On our last day we didn’t have to be out of our “casa rural” until 2pm so we decided to have one more outing. Close to Chulilla is a village called Sot De Chera (every time I say it I start singing I Shot The Sheriff. Most annoying). Pep had seen that close to the town there is a route that takes you to “Las Toscas De Sot De Chera”. It’s quite a unique spot with mini waterfalls so we went to check it out. Well, almost. (photo 46 shows the walk down to “Las Toscas”).

We took a wrong turning and ended up walking up a mountain (photo 47) completely in the opposite direction of “Las Toscas”. By the time we found them it was so late, I had to take a picture from above (photo 48) and we zoomed back to our rental accommodation to remove all our belongings before 2pm. We will hopefully get to visit in the future. If you’d like to see better photos check out this blog here.

Well, I hope I haven’t bored you too much with our trip. Chulilla is definitely worth a visit. I’d like to go back sometime and do a couple of the routes we didn’t get chance to do. One more thing, if you do ever visit, check out the restaurant “Las Bodegas De Vanacloig” (website here). It’s 7 kilometres away from Chulilla and boy were we glad it was there.

We went twice, once walking and once in the car. They have two different menus, one for 22€ and one for 25€ (plus drinks), which they change every so often, depending on what’s in season at the time. They also have a la carte. We tried both of the menus. The food is divine, a bit different, extremely tasty and very well presented. The service was very good too. I just wish it was a bit closer to Benissa!!

One of their specialities “Puritos de ajoarriero” (filo pastry filled with mashed potatoes, garlic and salt cod) and my dessert on our first day “Gin Tonic En Texturas” (different textures of Gin & Tonic). On the bottom, tonic jelly, the middle layer is a type of lemon sorbet and the top is a type of gin meringue. It was scrumptious, as was everything else we were lucky enough to sample

Ok, I’m off. Sorry for such a long post, I probably should have done two separate ones but it’s a bit late now. Thanks for reading. I’ll be back on Valley FM (listen online here) this Saturday between 12pm and 2pm. Here’s last Saturday’s spot if you’d like a listen. Take care. See you soon. Love Georgie and Pep xxx