The €3 entry fee includes Garaden’s cave, a drink from the bar there and entry to Alcalá’s disused cinema. Another Diablo enterprise, this too is crowded with curious collectables (a stuffed gorilla in a telephone box, rusty farm implements, a horseless cart) but high up on the balcony, rows of hard bench seats and an original projector recall this atmospheric relic’s silent-movie roots.

At Café Masago, in another street, in another cave, at the end of another long tunnel, we eat slow-cooked partridge with white beans and a gazpacho manchego – a rustic La Manchuela stew of rabbit or chicken (or both) cooked with squares of unleavened bread. Seated at a circular window cut into the stone, we are at the penthouse level of the gorge, with views of the river a hundred metres or so below.

The sinuous Júcar is a green snake of a river, flanked by forest, river beaches and allotments: the latter a patchwork of fruit trees, almonds, olives and neat rows of lettuce. Traditionally this was a market garden economy; now the area specialises in adventure sports (kayaking, rafting, rock climbing, hiking, cycling and canyoning among others). Groups of canoeing (often shrieking) children in orange life jackets are a common sight on the river, which offers miles of rocks and rapids stretching all the way to Cuenca, nearly two hours’ drive to the north.

There are several cheap hostales in Alcalá, but we spend the night in one of its cave-house holiday homes. Casa Cueva Las Tinajas de Naya (sleeps six from €300) resembles a normal village house from the outside but inside, three windowless double bedrooms have been scooped out of the rock – dark, womb-like and completely silent, other than the hum of a dehumidifier.

In the morning, we follow the Júcar to Tolosa, a tiny hamlet 6km to the east, where the river widens and the vertical gorge is green with aromatic forests of juniper and pine. The place is deserted, but the stone-built AvenJúcar hostel (bed €32pp B&B) advertises energetic group experiences (such as paddleboarding, rafting and hiking) so it’s probably not always so tranquil.

In the opposite direction, Jorquera – half an hour’s drive from Alcalá, is the walled medieval village whose photograph brought me here. From a bend in the road that climbs out of the gorge, we stop to take a photograph: perched on a lump of rock, with the river wrapped around its base like a moat, Jorquera looks like a floating island.

With one tiny shop and a restaurant-bar that isn’t open, deserted Jorquera seems locked in a time-warp but at the foot of its cliff we find an unexpected pocket of 21st-century cool. A glassy new-build restaurant, La Playa has tables on a jetty over the river, a manmade beach with parasols, a menu of modern takes on Spanish classics (grilled octopus, seafood paella, patatas bravas), decent prices (starters from €8, mains from €14) and staff who speak good English, a rarity around here (at last, no need for Google Translate).A few kilometres further on, we cross the river on a narrow, rather rickety bridge and check into Xuq (suites from €124 B&B), the aforementioned boutique “apart hotel” with eight groovy suites tucked into the walls of the gorge.

The hotel was created by friends Victor Pinedo and Fernando Monteagudo, who left their jobs (in engineering and accountancy), bought a row of rundown, middle-of-nowhere cave dwellings, and embarked on a “new concept in rural tourism”. They took the name from Xuquer (Arabic for Júcar) and jazzed up the cave rooms with memory foam pillows, original art, retro fridges, dinky kitchenettes and designer furniture (the odd Eames chair). Nearly every room has an oversized spa bath (some of them sunk into the rock); some have shower rooms and all feature bumpy walls of natural limestone.

From here there’s plenty of walking and cycling (there are bikes to borrow), and towns and villages to explore. Xuq doesn’t serve food other than a continental breakfast buffet and although all the rooms have a kitchenette, the nearest supermarket is in Alcalá.

One of the owners’ objectives, they say, is to spread the word about their region – and it seems to be working. The hotel is full, mostly with young couples swapping Madrid or Valencia for the soothing rush of the river in its canyon, and the smell of pines and wild rosemary. Overtourism is a long way off.

• Accommodation was provided by Xuq (doubles from €124 B&B). Alcalá del Júcar is two-and-a-half hours’ drive from Madrid, or just under two hours from Valencia or Alicante. More information from lamanchuelarural.com

Fuente The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/aug/17/spain-jucar-gorge-alcala-cave-dwellings-hotel