Morella

You see Morella from a long way off, which is the point. The road climbs through the Els Ports mountains in the far north of Castellón province, switchback after switchback through pine and scrubland, and then the town appears on its rock like something dropped there on purpose — a full circuit of medieval walls, nearly two kilometres of them, still standing almost complete, with the ruined castle perched above everything at over a thousand metres. This is inland Valencia at its most dramatic, closer in feeling to Aragón or Teruel than to the beaches three hours east, and the temperature drop as you climb tells you that immediately.

Walls, a Castle, and a Very Long Viaduct

The castle itself has been fought over since Iberian and Roman times, refortified by the Moors, and taken by El Cid before eventually falling to King James I of Aragón in the thirteenth century as part of the Reconquista push down the coast. What’s left today is mostly ruin — it was blown up during the Carlist Wars of the nineteenth century — but the views from the top are worth the climb alone: the walled town spilling down the rock below you, terracotta roofs packed tight inside the ramparts, and beyond them the strange sight of a nineteenth-century railway viaduct, all stone arches, that was built to connect Morella to the coast and never actually carried a train, abandoned before the line was finished. It’s now a walking path, and I took it out of the old town at dusk, the arches throwing long shadows across scrubland that smelled sharply of rosemary and thyme.

Porticoes, Truffles, and Wool

Inside the walls, Morella’s main street runs under a continuous line of stone porticoes — arcaded passages that shopkeepers and pilgrims have walked under for centuries, rain or shine, since this was a stop on routes connecting Aragón to the Mediterranean. The town made its historic wealth from wool and textiles, and you can still find weaving traditions and wool shops tucked into the old streets, though today Morella is at least as famous for what grows underground: this part of Els Ports produces black truffles, and in winter the town leans hard into it, with restaurants shaving them over everything from scrambled eggs to the local flatbread. I ate a truffle-laced stew in a stone-walled dining room with a fire going despite it being only October, and understood immediately why nobody in Morella apologizes for the cold.

The town also holds an unusual claim for its size: Morella’s Aula de Música, a music school with roots stretching back generations, has produced an outsized number of professional musicians from a town of barely two thousand people, and on a quiet evening you can sometimes hear a brass band or choir rehearsing somewhere behind the walls, echoing oddly off the stone.

When to go: Winter, especially December through February, is truffle season and pairs perfectly with Morella’s cold-mountain character; September and October bring cooler air and the best light on the walls without snow on the roads.