"Terra Ferma Walking trips in the warm sierras of the Mediterranean "

Al-Azraq, the 13th-century Moorish warlord who fought the Christian kings of Spain, certainly had an eye for a castle. From the ruins of his cragtop stronghold in the Sierra de Serrella, I could see forever. To the south, an hour's drive away, lay Benidorm, sleeping off its hangover in the springtime heat haze; and deep down in the valley below me I could make out the first of the day's tourist buses toiling up the road to Guadalest.

Of all Spain's attractions, only the Prado Museum in Madrid receives more visitors than this picture-book village in the mountains behind the Costa Blanca. But in the sierras above Guadalest, among the ruins of Al-Azraq's castle and all along the bony ridge of the Serrella massif, I had walked for six hours with only eagles for company.

Valencia is one of the sunniest parts of Spain - hence the popularity of its holiday coast. From end to end, this 450km stretch of the Mediterranean presents an endless vista of retirement villas and high-rise hotels. But inland, once you cross the A7 motorway, the picture changes. First, an emptiness of orange groves and terraced hillsides, then range upon range of limestone mountains lofting into the sky.

This is the barren landscape of Els Ports and the Maestrazgo, in the far north of the province, where the Knights Templar once held sway. It's an austere countryside of silver limestone, lit with gorse and covered by spiky mauve shrubs known locally as "nun's pillows". Morella, the capital of this forgotten region, is an hour's drive from the coast, but 600 years away in time. Once, it was second in importance only to Valencia. Now, it is a provincial backwater lost in the mountains, with a population of just 3,000 people eking out a living from tourism and truffle-hunting.

Its brooding castle - visible for miles around - has long been a ruined shell, but the city walls and fortified gateways are still intact, completely encircling the entire town, as in a Renaissance painting.

Step inside and at once you find yourself drawn into a warren of narrow streets that wind around the castle rock. Ancient houses, their first floors propped up on stone pillars, lean out over the cobbles, and under the gables are shops selling wondrous delicacies: black truffles, mountain honey and wafer-slices of air-dried ham.

The Cardenal Ram is the place to stay, a 16th-century cardinal's palace transformed into a comfortable three-star hotel, and it was from here that I drove to Tinenca de Benifassa, or the Seven Villages, to enjoy a day's walking in the mountains.

My companion was Jose-Miguel Garcia, the co-director of Terra Ferma, a Spanish company specialising in ecofriendly walking tours of the region. The sun shone warmly, the air was pungent with mountain herbs, and as we climbed steadily, rising above a tumbling chaos of wooded canyons and limestone rimrocks, the only sound was the rush of wind surfing through the pines.

Everywhere spring flowers were in bloom: cowslips, violets, purple orchids. A pair of eagles sailed overhead, then slanted away on the breeze, and an ibex clattered away over the rocks.

Up and up the path led us, over pine cones that crunched beneath our boots, with sheer cliffs falling away on one side into awesome gulfs of sunlit space, until at last we reached Portell de l'Infern (the Gate of Hell) - the narrow gap that would lead us into the next valley.

Somewhere on the other side, we sprawled in the shade to devour our picnic: ham, sheep's cheese, a metre-long loaf, sweet grapes and almonds. We may have passed through the Gate of Hell, but this was my idea of heaven. "Nobody comes here," said Jose-Miguel. "Well, maybe one or two Spanish walkers, but no English."

And it was true. A few British visitors drive as far as Morella, but this was one step beyond. We had gone the extra mile into a part of Spain as yet scarcely touched by tourism. This was Espana Negra, the Spain of the Dark Ages, locked in an ancient silence of cliffs and canyons and trackless forests whose only inhabitants are wild boar, ibex and wheeling vultures.

Next day we drove back towards Benidorm, then headed inland to Facheca, a village at the foot of the Serrella massif, to stay overnight in a private guesthouse. I awoke to a flawless day, with cuckoos calling from the cherry orchards and the mountains bathed in golden sunlight. Eager to be off, we hurried through breakfast and began the long ascent towards the skyline. Above us, the path stretched like a penance, zigzagging steeply into the Barranc dels Moros (Gully of the Moors) to a spring where wild boar had left their tracks in the mud.

From the ridge near the summit I could see down for the first time into the deep, U-shaped valley of Guadalest, its every contour terraced with groves of olives and almond trees. Flurries of choughs flew out from the cliffs, their shrill cries echoing as they dived into the void beneath us. The air was pure oxygen, and we were utterly alone.

"Big country, big views," said Jose-Miguel, with more than a hint of pride.

The way down led us through the Barranc de la Canal, whose towering limestone spires and buttresses might have doubled for the Dolomites, had it not been for the hot Spanish sunshine and the smell of the gorse rolling down the mountainsides.

A guide is essential in this mountain country. Earlier, Jose-Miguel had pointed out a primitive stone shelter at the base of a cliff. It was, he said, a sester - a place where sheep were penned to rest in the shade: hence the origin of the Spanish word siesta.

But not until my last day did he reveal the existence of the region's best kept secrets. These are the "snow wells" of the Sierra de Aitana (1,558m), the highest of the numerous peaks overlooking the Costa Blanca. Up to 15 metres deep, these extraordinary constructions date from the 16th century and were used to store ice in the days before refrigeration. In the heat of summer, the ice would be carried down the mountain by pack mules in the dead of night to the coastal cities.

Here, far from the booming bars of Benidorm, in the lonely sierras of Al-Azraq's lost kingdom and in the desolation of the Maestrazgo, Spain still has the power to astound and surprise.

oBrian Jackman was a guest of the Valencia Region Tourist Board and Terra Ferma TRAVEL BRIEF

Getting there: GB Airways (0845 773 3377) has scheduled return flights from Gatwick to Valencia (from £149) or Alicante (from £194); regional departures are £50-£100 more. From Dublin, Falcon (01 872 9161) has direct charters to Alicante on Air 2000 from £239, and scheduled fares to Valencia on Aer Lingus from £355.

Where to stay: in Morella, a double at the three-star Hotel Cardenal Ram (00 34-964 173085) costs £35 a night. In the Sierra de Aitana, the Pension El Trestellador (965 885221), in Benimantell, has outstanding regional cooking. Best value for walkers is to be found at the casas rurales (902 115 356) - an association of local guesthouses offering dinner, B&B in village homes.

Tour operators: a seven-night Terra Ferma walking holiday in the Sierra de Aitana starts at £560pp, including return flights from Gatwick to Alicante, English-speaking guide, all meals and accommodation. Book through Exodus (020 8675 5550) or Origins Travel (01433 659331).

More information:

Valencia Tourism
Tlfn: 963 51 04 17
Web: www.comunitat-valenciana.com

www.terraferma.net

A lively look at hiking in the Sierra de Aitana

DON'T SET off for the mountains without spending a couple of days in the provincial capital. Valencia is Spain's third-biggest city, just behind Madrid and Barcelona, with plenty to see and do.

Its most famous landmark is the Miguelete, the cathedral's lofty octagonal bell tower, but the covered market is more fun - a 1920s temple of food, spread out across 1,000 stalls beneath a dome with a giant green parrot on top.

Don't miss the inspirational new City of Arts and Sciences, currently taking shape on the former course of the River Turia. The river was diverted after a flood in the 1950s and its bed is now a park at whose eastern end looms this extraordinary vision of the future. Its most stunning building is L'Hemisferic, resembling a giant glass eye. Inside is an Imax cinema and a planetarium.

South of the city is the Albufera, Spain's biggest freshwater lake, a refuge for wildfowl and migrating wading birds from Africa. In the Middle Ages, the lake was 10 times its present size, but, over the years, land has been reclaimed and turned into rice fields, producing the staple ingredient for Spain's ubiquitous national dish - paella.

In Valencia, revered throughout Spain as the home of paella, it is traditionally cooked by men over an orange-wood fire. The pan itself - the paellera - is the utensil that gave the dish its name, and should be brought to the table for all to dip into with a wooden spoon. Paella comes in all kinds of styles, most famously with prawns and mussels, but also with duck, chicken, rabbit, turnips - even snails.

(c) Times Newspapers Ltd, 2001.

(c) Not Available for Re-dissemination.