Last week we drove to the small town of Chulilla located in the Campo de Turia region inland from Valencia.

On the way, we stopped at Bodega Cooperativa Agrícola Santa Bárbara de Casinos. Since we have been living in Comunidad Valenciana, we have noticed that there a quite a few cooperative agricola. We are not sure if these did not exist in Galicia or if we just did not notice. We have a few just near Castellon that we have marked on our map and hope to visit but this one is located in Casinos a small town on the road to Chulilla. We had read they have good olive oil and vermouth so we stopped to check it out and learn more about them.

This is translated from their website and explains how they operate and their history.

The Santa Barbara de Casinos Agricultural Cooperative is an organization dedicated to the agricultural sector of the municipality of Casinos, located in the Campo de Turia region in the interior of Valencia. At the Cooperative, you can find a wide variety of services linked to the agricultural sector and the well-being of the people of the municipality and surrounding areas. Among the services offered, the production of the highest quality virgin olive oil, the professional agricultural supplies warehouse section, the nuts section, the warehouse store section and the 24-hour gas station stand out. In 1952, the Santa Barbara de Casinos Agricultural Cooperative was born, from the union of farmers for the good of the people and in order to defend their property, their crops and their work. Thanks to some who started and others who continued until today, all of them managed to keep the Santa Bárbara Cooperative and its sections alive today, fulfilling and meeting the needs of its members. For more than 70 years, this effort and fight to have the door open has been maintained, and today with the changes that the sector has experienced, it continues to be the agricultural engine of Casinos.

We continued on to Chulilla which is a lovely white village that sits on the edge of the Los Calderones National Park.

The town looks out on the surrounding rock walls of the Los Calderones National Park and is known in Europe for climbing lovers, who come especially during the winter for its imposing limestone walls.

We had lunch at Restaurante Hoces del Turia, which was very good and lived up to it’s reviews. You can enjoy a view out to the rock walls and if you watch very closely you can see the rock climbers

Castillo de Chulilla was originally a fort built by the Romans but when the Moors arrived they fortified it and built the castle in the 12th century, which sits on top of the ridge overlooking the town. The Moors also built the weir, Charco Azul to be able to irrigate the entire basin and its orchards.

Just outside the town is the large gorge of the Turia River which includes the Charco Azul weir. You can walk down to the river gorge where there are boardwalks along the river and suspension bridges known as the Ruta de los Puentes Colgantes. We did not have time to explore this time and hope to return and explore some of the walks.