The Maestrat is the old Valencian highland, a country of bare limestone, stone-walled fields and farmhouses called masos, and the name of this shelter refers to one of them: the mas of the mill at the cave. It is a very long way from the beaches that most people associate with Castellón. The shelter lies a few kilometres from Villafranca del Cid, known in Valencian as Vilafranca, which sits at roughly a thousand metres on a plateau where the winters are cold and the summers are mercifully fresh.
Painted shelters like this one are part of the Levantine rock art of eastern Spain, in which tiny red figures of archers, deer and wild goats are drawn under rocky overhangs. The tradition stretches across the Mediterranean side of the peninsula, and the Maestrat holds some of its most important sites. UNESCO recognised the group in 1998. It is easy to imagine why prehistoric hunters would have loved this region: the valleys hold water, the ridges give a view, and the game would have been plentiful.
Culla and Benassal are the villages to know. Culla crowns a rocky hill with the remains of a medieval castle and has a beautiful old centre of narrow lanes, while Benassal is known across Spain for its spring water and for the quiet, handsome stone houses in its streets. The area also makes good sausages, cured ham and truffles in the colder months, which any local bar will happily put in front of you.
The riding up here is excellent, which is not the usual reputation of Castellón. The roads rise from the coast through gorges, then open onto an undulating plateau with long views and open bends. Traffic is light, the surface is mostly good, and there is the sensation of being in a proper mountain region. Pick a spring or autumn day, because snow and fog are real possibilities in winter and the sun can feel fierce in August.
Fuel is the thing to plan. The villages here are small, and the nearest large town is l'Alcora, well over thirty kilometres away. Villafranca del Cid, with a couple of thousand people, is your best local bet, but fill up beforehand if you can.