Notes from inland doors: frost, hills and long drives
Written for the doors of an inland town: frost on padlocks, houses on the El Rabal hillside, stores among the vines, festival weekends, the AVE station six kilometres out and units on the estates. Each guide ends with the service that deals with it.
Old houses and the cold
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A new old house on a Biar slope
Biar’s old town climbs in narrow, steep streets to a thirteenth-century castle. If you have just bought, or been handed the keys to, a house on one of them, these are the doors and locks to deal with in the first week, and the ones that can wait.
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Old doors on the El Rabal hillside
El Rabal is one of Villena’s oldest quarters, built up the hillside over a century and a half, with some houses cut back into the rock. Its doors rarely sit square, and that changes how their locks behave.
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Frost and the lock that will not turn
Villena holds the coldest temperature ever recorded in the province of Alicante. On a freezing morning, here is what is safe to try on a stiff lock or padlock, what makes it worse, and how to tell weather from wear.
Trains, festivals and finding you
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Leyendas del Rock and the doors you lock behind you
Leyendas del Rock brought more than 60,000 people to Villena over four days in its twentieth edition. A few practical habits keep your keys, your car and your rented room on the right side of the door.
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Off the train at Villena AV without your keys
The high-speed station sits about six kilometres south of Villena, near Santa Eulalia. If your keys are not with you, the time to sort it out is before you board, and if you are already on the platform, this is what helps.
Campo and valley
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Directions to a house in a Villena pedanía
Villena’s municipal term holds fifteen settlements outside the town, from Las Virtudes five kilometres out to La Encina at eighteen. Street names barely exist out there. This is how to bring anyone to the right gate the first time.
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The big old lock on a vineyard store
Vines are the largest crop in the Villena term, and many plots keep a store with a heavy timber door and an old lock to match. When that lock can stay, when it is repaired, and when it has to go.
Businesses
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The night alarm call from your unit
The El Rubial estate holds more than 190 firms. When the alarm company rings at three in the morning about yours, here is what to do before you drive over, at the door, and afterwards if it was forced.
Door still shut while you read?
Ring now, or send a photo of the lock and where you are on WhatsApp.
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