Mahuella

According to Coca Cola, which is probably a more reliable source than Wikipedia, and both of which are definitely more reliable than Valencia International, which has been known to take a snooze during an editorial meeting, there are about 350,000 bars and restaurants in Spain, which works out as one for every 132 of its 47.2 million inhabitants.

And so, finding a town or village that doesn’t have a bar is a daunting experience. Nevertheless, we here at VI like to think that we put the ‘daunt’ into ‘daunting’, and sent a crack team of investigative journalists on an all expenses paid trip to discover such a place; and they found it.

The village in question is Mahuella, which you can also spell without the H if you wish, as the people there are incredibly laid-back.

Mahuella is located between Albuixech and Meliana, although you might miss it if you are driving at over 30 kph. A bit like Belgium.

It is the village that created the expression “just a group of houses really” even though it has a Town Hall and two churches. But it does not have a bar; and believe me, after an hour’s walk I really looked hard.

What it does have is a lot of cats, and inhabitants who will stop and chat if you stop and look at something. Consequently, my wife got into a long discussion about whether or not alfalfa can be eaten by humans. The answer is that it can, that my wife was right, and that she almost made an omelette there on the spot to prove it.

Malhuella is of Arab origin, although there are no buildings that appear to be more than 100 years old.

It is clearly a place where some people with a bit of money have bought old houses and turned them into modern ones; gentrification I think they call it.

Curiously sometimes you can see a crumbling little dwelling next to what can only be described as a palace.

It has a main square so that people don’t get lost, where the Town Hall can be found next to one of the churches, both seemingly permanently closed, and a fountain that reminds everyone that drinking water arrived there in 1985.

I would have liked to stay longer, and perhaps chat to some of the locals over a glass of……but that wasn’t going to happen, and so we wandered back to civilisation, with a new-found feeling of serenity, and coverage.

Just on the edge of town, as Springsteen is fond of saying, is the chapel of Santisimo Cristo, a much more aesthetically pleasing building, constructed in 1951.

It was also closed, but then it was a Sunday, so I suppose that most people were in church, or in the bar…………..

Update: in a more recent visit, it seems that the village now considers itself a home to the arts, or at least that’s what a sign on the Town Hall declares; although there’s still no bar!