Aliaguilla

A village below the tower

Aliaguilla lies in the east of the Serranía Baja, beside the boundary with Valencia. The houses descend the southern slope of the Cuesta de la Torre, the hill where a tower gave rise to the village; nothing remains of the tower but its name. It was a village of farming and livestock, and the municipality still mixes cereal fields, uncultivated hills and maritime-pine forest.

What trades and memory tell

An 11th-century Andalusi tower stands in the Torrelahuerta area. Around it can still be seen the vegetable terraces irrigated with aquifer water and, higher up, with waterwheels.

In the hills are two fortified Iberian settlements, known through surface survey and unexcavated. La Plaza de Sobrarias is the larger: about 4 hectares, a 156-metre wall with bastions and a ditch cut into rodeno, the red sandstone of the south-east; two denarii from Bolskan were found there. Los Castellares is smaller. Other surface sites include Cerrito Picudo, Puntal de la Atalaya and Tinada Guandonera, gathered in the Cerro Viejo entry.

In 1242 Aliaguilla’s revenues belonged to the hospital of the Order of Santiago in Moya, whose commander, Gonzalo Gómez, resettled it. During the Revolt of the Comuneros the district rose against its marquis, and one of the leaders was hanged. The church of La Asunción was rebuilt around 1670, work attributed to the Moya stonemason Tomás Cortés Plazoleta. During the Civil War its altars, images and parish and municipal archives burnt, and the bells were thrown down.

At Holy Week people make buñuelos de perol, pan-fried fritters, and mazamorra, made with potato, egg and desalted cod. Festivities are on 13 June for San Antonio de Padua, whose hermitage is in La Hoya with the keeper’s house still standing, and 16 August for San Roque. The last weekend of July brings a livestock, agricultural and food fair, and the village ethnographic museum is among the region’s most complete.

The Collado de la Plata cave has, according to the 1845 description, several entrances and chambers, white stalactites and a sound inside like a stream. It is not a cave prepared for visitors.

The king’s librarian

Juan Crisóstomo Ramírez Alamanzón was born in Aliaguilla in 1759. He was ordained at Cuenca’s San Julián seminary in 1781, studied canon law in Valencia and spent time in Requena before settling in Madrid as secretary to the Inquisitor General. He was a member of the Real Academia Española, holding seat M, serving as its permanent secretary and first librarian, and of the Real Academia de la Historia from 1803, for his work on the chronicle of Fernando IV. He was known for his learning and, above all, making good indexes.

In 1807 Carlos IV commissioned him to value and arrange the collections bought for his private library, and he ended up running both that library and the Real Biblioteca Pública, today’s Biblioteca Nacional; Fernando VII formally appointed him to both posts in 1808. José Bonaparte dismissed him in 1811, and Ramírez refused the Seville canonry offered in exchange. He regained his post for a few months with Wellington’s entry in 1812, had to take refuge in Miranda del Castañar and returned to the library in June 1813. He died in Griñón on 8 June 1814. In his will he asked to be buried without pomp and left his property in Aliaguilla to nieces.

Routes

• PR-CU 14, Sendero de Torrelahuerta: 10.5 km along the old Mira road to the tower, then through pine forest to the Collado de Pedro Chova and the Telégrafo summit. Nearby is Pico Pelado, at 1,422 m.
• PR-CU 15, Sendero del Collado de la Plata: a 7 km circular route through the rodeno woods of Sobrarias. It starts 2.5 km from the village, at the Fuente de la Canaleja picnic area.

Plan your visit

Combine the village centre with one of the two short-distance trails: the PR-CU 14 takes a morning; the PR-CU 15, two hours.

Before you travel

Take water and walking footwear: these are pine-forest tracks without facilities. In winter the weather changes quickly on the pass. The settlements and cave have not been prepared for visitors.

Combine with

Mira is 10 km away as the crow flies and Garaballa about 9.