Sierra Bernia Walking Route, Lunch At Restaurante Sierra Bernia And “Nísperos” (Margarita Recipe Included)

Aaaah fabulous, the temperatures are gradually increasing and with them, so too are my energy levels (I was starting to get a bit worried there). As I begin this post, it’s an unusually hot day for this time of year (31 degrees in the shade in Benissa), but I love it (apart from blinking hay fever!). Summer is finally on its way, the season I live for. And before I carry on, here’s a rather amusing, jovial song about hay fever, it helps make light of all that blooming pollen!

As I said, my energy has returned, after what’s seemed like a long, drizzly start to the spring. Our few days away in Alcoy proved we could still walk a couple of dozen kilometres a day up and down mountains (whilst getting lost in the process too🙄). More on the rest of our holiday in my next post. For today’s entry I fancied talking about something slightly closer to home. A walk that we have done on several occasions. It’s one I used to do by myself a few years back, before I met Pep and I was living in Orba. Little did I know a few years later I would be living just down the road from said walk.

The Sierra Bernia, in my opinion of course 😊, is the most magnificent mountain in the Alicante province. It’s not the highest (it measures in at 1128 metres above sea level), nor is it the largest (it spreads out over 1900 hectares and is shared by Alcalalí, Jalón, Benissa, Calpe, Altea, Tàrbena and Callosa d’en Sarrià, extending approximately 11 kilometres). But I don’t care about all those numbers. Along with the Serra del Ferrer from the Tàrbena side, I think it’s the most beautiful of them all (you’re probably all thinking “what’s this girl on, it’s a mountain for goodness sake”😂).

Right, enough swooning over a rock, on to the walk. We decided to go on a Friday. Since all this Covid business the route can become quite saturated at weekends. Years ago I would often go on a Sunday, rarely would I bump into more than 5 or 6 people as I made my way around Bernia’s circumference. That’s all changed lately so we prefer to go on a week day, I can’t be doing with people all over the place when I’m trying to enjoy nature.

Trending

Alcoy, Our Holiday (Part 2). Bocairent, Walks In The Sierra Mariola And Font Roja Natural Parks Plus A Recipe For Vegan “Bajoques Farcides” (Stuffed Red Peppers).

The walk starts close to the “Cases de Bèrnia” and also the Restaurante Sierra Bernia. There’s plenty of parking space, I’m sure it’s easy enough to park at weekends too. Being a circular route you can go either way but I would highly recommended walking up to the “Forat” first, then continuing to the “Fort”, followed by a nice easy walk back to the starting point.

I’ve only gone the other way once but I ended up regretting it, I’m not too partial to walking down steep, gravelly terrain. I’d sooner suffer the climb and then enjoy the rest of the route with a gradual descent at the end. When I was a kid, the gym teacher at our school took us on a tour of the Castellet mountain in Orba. On the way back down the ground was very slippery and gravelly, I managed to slide down a few good metres on my bum. I had a huge hole in my tracksuit bottoms, one of my friends had to lend me her jacket so I could tie it round my waist and avoid showing everybody my knickers!! Good times 😂

We commence by walking a kilometre or so along a flat road (which becomes a dirt track after a couple of hundred metres) to the “Font de Bèrnia” (Bernia spring). Here the route divides into two, we take the few concrete steps and commence our climb up to the Forat. It’s a mostly continuous ascent, some parts more strenuous than others, but it’s worth having a stop every now and then to contemplate the views and get your breath back. At a moderate pace (and with me stopping every few minutes to take a photo) I think it took us around 40 minutes to walk from the “Font de Bèrnia” to the “Forat”.

The views from the Forat are stupendous, we sat down for a few minutes just to take it all in. I’ve been up there many a time but It always seems new.

Now it was time to tackle the southern side of Bernia. To do this you need to walk through the Forat tunnel (forat means hole in Valenciano). You have to crouch down to walk through the first few metres, basically you need to waddle (not very ladylike). The closer you get to the other side, the higher the “ceiling” of the tunnel. It’s not hard, you just have to make sure you don’t bang your head.

We’re rewarded with views of Altea, Albir, Benidorm, all along the coast to Alicante, as well as the Serra Gelada, Puig Campana and Aitana mountains. Fantastic.

After another few moments contemplating the sights our journey continues towards the Fort. The route is well marked, easy enough to walk along and doesn’t have too many uphill struggles! I personally prefer this part to the walk up to the Forat. Marvellous views accompany us throughout our travels, massive white sheets covering the “níspero” (loquat) orchards are spread out beneath us.

About an hour after leaving the “Forat”, the “Fort” appears ahead of us. The “Fort” (a Valenciano word that is spelt the same in English, “Fuerte” in Spanish) was declared of cultural interest in 1997. King Felipe II devised its construction in 1562, its use was to defend the coast. Due to being so far away, it impeded a rapid response against an attack, hence why King Felipe III ordered its destruction in 1612, to avoid it becoming occupied by Moors. Shame really.

It was time for our descent. Tárbena and Bolulla come into view before we eventually walk back round to the Northern side of Bernia.

It’s the perfect route to do before lunch. Depending on your speed and the amount of stops, it takes between 3 to 4 hours to complete, just the right amount of time to work up an appetite. We hadn’t been to the Sierra Bernia restaurant for 3 or 4 years and I’m not sure why. We used to really enjoy their paellas (that’s all we’ve ever eaten there).

We’d ordered a paella 2 or 3 days before our visit. For our “primer plato” we ordered a simple salad (it’s either that or “embutido” (a selection of local sausages)). Pep had some bread which looked pretty tasty, accompanied with homemade all-i-oli. The paella arrived. I had forgotten how big they were here. The pan for 2 is massive. The rice is thin though, just as it should be. Not too much meat either, the rice is the main ingredient here and that’s how we like it.

The desserts aren’t too bad. There was a choice of apple pie, almond cake or cheese “flan” I think. We had the apple pie which wasn’t homemade so I didn’t bother taking a pic. It was ok, nothing to rave about but we don’t go for the puds. I should think the “flan” would be homemade, maybe the almond cake is too. The price is extremely reasonable, our meal cost just over 28€ for the two of us. There was quite a bit of rice left over too. As always it was taken home, ready for lunch the next day 😊.

Something worth mentioning about the restaurant is they don’t accept payment by credit card. They also don’t have a Facebook page, website or anything like that. Here’s a link to a page with a couple of reviews, also the phone number and opening hours. They close on Saturdays.

Well, that was our little walk last Friday. I think I’ll be going again soon, before the weather gets too hot. It’s not the sort of route you want to do in the summer, there is hardly any shade. Unless you go at night, of course. I did once, with a torch, but I’d sooner go during the day, can’t be too careful with the wild boars. Nothing worse than hearing them grunting and not knowing exactly where they are!!

Right, on to the “nísperos” (loquats). Known locally as the first fruit of the spring, every year we seem to have more than we know what to do with. Pep has just two trees in Pinos. They bear enough fruit to feed both of us, as well as all of Pep’s family, with a couple of tonnes to spare! I use these two tonnes to make jam and also preserve them in syrup. I spend many an hour each year preparing them. Occasionally I’ve made chutney but it’s not something we eat a lot of (Pep can’t stand it 😂). I prefer to make something that won’t sit in the cupboard for years.

I also use “nísperos” in other ways (cakes, on salads, smoothies) but I fancied making a cocktail. For those of you who read my Benidorm post, you’ll know my favourite cocktail is the Margarita. The combination of salty and sour tastes compliment the tequila really well. I have about 2 a year (the bottle lasts around a decade in this house, good job it doesn’t go off!).

So I decided one of these biannual Margaritas would be made with “nísperos”. I was sure it would be drinkable, even if it wasn’t technically a Margarita. The ingredients were 7 nísperos, 60ml of silver tequila, approximately 90ml of freshly squeezed orange juice, the juice of half a lemon (or 1 lime), 30 ml of agave syrup (you can use simple syrup instead), 11 ice cubes from an ice cube tray (not the bought ones, they’re normally bigger) and salt for the rim of the glass. I don’t use triple sec ’cause I don’t have any and I’m better off if I just stick to one spirit! If you do want to use triple sec you could substitute 30ml of the orange juice with it.

Prepare the glass by rubbing some lemon round the rim before dipping it into the salt. I smashed the ice a bit before it goes in the blender, it’s easier on the blades, etc. Then chuck everything in with the ice and blitz until there are no ice chunks left. It wasn’t as slushy as I would have liked but I wouldn’t want to use more ice as it would water it down too much I think. A good idea would be to use cold ingredients and maybe even freeze the níspero halves before making the cocktail. I’ll try that next year!

Ok, best be off, I’m in the process of shelling a few hundred kilos of peas and broad beans at the moment. My fingers are constantly brown. Very fetching. Before I go I’d just like to share a couple of vegan recipes I made recently from different blogs. Sesame crusted tofu was absolutely delicious. It reminded me of eating scampi from a Fish and Chip shop, without the fishy flavour of course.

The second recipe, well, the second and third recipes, are a vegan Nutella and gluten free buckwheat waffles. The Nutella is droolworthy (is that a word??), so much better than the stuff you get in the shops and much healthier too. I even topped a vegan, gluten free carrot cake with it, it’s so good. The waffles are also rather nice, they have grated apple and carrot in them. I didn’t have any carrots so I just used apple. They still worked out fine. I made them vegan by substituting the egg with a flax egg and the milk with rice milk.

Well I think that’s enough for one day, don’t you? Thank you for reading. Any suggestions or questions or whatever else you can think of, don’t hesitate to get in touch. I’ll be back on Valley FM this Saturday lunchtime with my usual 6 or 7 minutes. Take care all of you. Enjoy the spring. Lots of love, Georgie and Pep xxx

P.S. Here’s a recent picture of Dora, the cat I spoke about in my Cáceres post, modelling a basket that Pep’s mum made for me, as well as a rather apt (in my case) sign that a friend of mine gave me.