Cueva Santa & Salto de la Novia

In the hills of Alto Palancia, a flight of steps leads twenty metres down into the rock to one of Spain's strangest sanctuaries: the Cueva Santa, a chapel built inside a natural cave, where shepherds once sheltered and a small relief of the Virgin has drawn pilgrims since the sixteenth century.

From there we drop to the Palancia river at Navajas, where the Salto de la Novia waterfall pours thirty metres into a green pool. The legend - a bride, a leap, a lost ring - changes with every teller; I'll give you the version the grandmothers tell, and the geology besides.

It's an easy, beautiful day in a corner of Castellón most visitors never reach: spring water, poplar shade, and villages where lunch still means something.