Puig is the Valencian word for a hill, and it is slightly funny to find it attached to a cliff, because the Cingle del Puig is not so much a hill as the sheer lip of a limestone terrace over a ravine. It lies above the Barranc de la Gasulla, less than six kilometres from Benassal and not far from Ares del Maestrat, a village that sits on a crag at more than a thousand metres and looks across the plateau like a ship on a rock. The high Maestrat has a stark, mineral beauty, with grey stone, dark green juniper and enormous skies.
Riding to Ares is one of the better small adventures in Castellón. The road from Benassal rises across open ground, passes through a belt of oak woods and then runs along the plateau with views to the south over the Plana toward the sea on clear days. The bends are medium and clean, the tarmac usually good, and the traffic mainly local. Ares itself is a steep tangle of lanes with a church and a few bars, and you park at the edge and walk. In winter, ice and fog are real hazards at this height, and even in May the wind can be cold.
The Gasulla ravine is the reason Ares appears in books on prehistory. Its painted shelters have scenes of hunting and of people in motion, and they stand in a long gorge where goats still climb the ledges. The area is managed as a cultural park, and the museum in Tírig, in the next valley to the south-east, explains the images. Some shelters are open only with a guide, and the cliffs are fragile, so check before you set out and stay on paths.
For fuel, Benassal has only village-scale services, so the safe choice is Alcalà de Xivert, thirty-three kilometres away on the way to the coast, or Vilafranca, closer and larger than the villages on the plateau. Culla is nearby and has the ruins of a medieval castle on a ridge, a good excuse for a coffee stop. Bring water, because the plateau has little shade, and a warm layer, because it has little shelter either.