Úbeda is its people: the soul behind the stone

Úbeda is usually described with predictable adjectives: “monumental”, “renaissance”, “eternal”, “heritage”. And all of that is true, technically correct, verifiable in any standard tourist guidebook.

But if you scratch a little on the polished surface of its ashlar facades, you discover that the true strength of this city does not lie in the stone carved by masters who died five hundred years ago. It resides in something more alive, warmer, more resistant to the passage of time: its people, the people of Úbeda who have decided that tradition is not a relic that is kept in museum display cases, but something that is kneaded with the hands, cooked with passion and sung every day.

This March 2026, as you stroll among impressive palaces or peek out over the mesmerizing sea of olive trees, you’ll come across people who keep the city alive beyond the buildings. People who could have left for bigger cities looking for more obvious opportunities, but who chose to stay, create, resist, transmit.

Today we introduce you to four of them. Four people from Úbeda who are, in reality, invisible pillars that support the city as much as the columns of Vandelvira.

Paco Tito: the guardian of ancestral fire and clay that has memory

If you enter Valencia Street and let your senses guide you, the smell of damp mud mixed with wood smoke will take you directly to Paco Tito’s workshop as if you were a hunting dog following an irresistible trail.

For Paco, pottery is not a trade that is learned in school or a profession that is chosen for economic convenience. It is lineage, it is blood inheritance, it is continuous conversation with ancestors who worked the same clay on the same lathes for generations.

The Arabian Oven Warrior

In a world of disposable plastic and industrial production that is destroying the artisan, Paco continues to use the traditional Arab oven, fueled exclusively with olive wood (that perfect symbiosis between the two symbols of Úbeda: ceramics and olive trees).

The process you refuse to abandon:

He molds each piece on an old lathe that could be in the museum but that he uses daily. Their hands know the mud with an intimacy that goes beyond technique: they know when it is too wet, when it needs more water, when it is ready for fire.

Bake at temperatures you only control by cumulative experience, without digital thermometers or precise timers. The smell of smoke, the color of the flames, the sound of fire tell you everything you need to know.

He applies glazes with recipes that no one else knows because he inherited them from his father, who inherited them from his, an uninterrupted chain of knowledge that is not written in any academic manual.

Its visible footprint in March

As the city prepares for Easter, Paco is putting the finishing touches on his famous figures of Nazarenes and sacred art that the brotherhoods will wear in imminent processions. Small sculptures that seem simple but require technical knowledge that few master.

Clay penitents who populate nativity scenes and homes in Ubeten. Votive pieces commissioned by devotees. Reproductions of saints venerated in private oratories.

Why Getting to Know It Deserves Your Time

Because to talk to Paco Tito is to understand that Úbeda is literally made of the same land as his pitchers. The clay he molds comes from the same fields that surround the city. The Renaissance palaces were built on the same ground that he worked on every day.

He does not make ceramics like someone who manufactures products: he guards the memory of hands that have been working this specific clay of this specific land for millennia.

When I show you a piece fresh from the oven, still warm to the touch, smelling of burnt olive smoke, you will understand something about Úbeda that no museum can show you.

Workshop: Valencia Street (pottery district) Visits: Possible with prior call, better in the morning

Kiko Peñuela: the alchemist who cooks the Renaissance in 21st century dishes

In the kitchens of the Asador de Santiago, Kiko Peñuela has been working against the clock for weeks with the intensity of someone who knows he is participating in something historic.

As one of the pillars of the XXV Gastronomic Days in the Renaissance (which this year celebrates a quarter of a century until March 15), his mission transcends simply cooking well: he is almost an alchemist, a culinary historian, an archaeologist of flavor.

The chef reading sixteenth-century cookbooks

Kiko Peñuela dedicates time that other chefs spend on social networks to study treatises on Renaissance cuisine: Diego Granado, Ruperto de Nola, convent recipe books, documents that describe banquets of sixteenth-century nobles.

He does not do it out of academic affectation: he does it because he is genuinely fascinated by rescuing forgotten flavors and presenting them with twenty-first century elegance without betraying their original essence.

Bittersweet combinations that were a sign of Renaissance sophistication. Use of spices that arrived from the East at the price of gold. Preservation techniques that allowed eating out of season. Presentations that impressed diners as much as Vandelvira’s architecture impressed visitors.

Your professional secret (which is not so secret)

The obsessive use of early harvest EVOO as a common thread throughout his menu. For Kiko Peñuela, each dish is an explicit tribute to the farmers who take care of the sea of olive trees that surrounds the city.

He does not use oil as an optional dressing: he makes it the protagonist that structures flavors, that unites ingredients, that defines the identity of the dish.

When you taste his creations, you understand why Úbeda is not only seen in monuments but is “eaten” exquisitely, why gastronomy is as valuable a heritage as architecture.

Why Your Work Matters Beyond the Palate

Because it is demonstrating that culinary tradition can evolve without losing soul, that rescuing ancient recipes does not mean becoming a gastronomic museum but a bridge between past and future.

Each diner who leaves his restaurant taking with him flavors that he had not experienced before is an involuntary ambassador of Úbeda, of its oil, of its ability to innovate while respecting roots.

Restaurant: Asador de Santiago Reservations: Essential for Gastronomic Day menus

Fran: the rebellious rhythm that makes centuries-old stones vibrate

If you are looking for the more vibrant, more consciously irreverent side of Úbeda, you have to ask for Fran, manager of the mythical La Tetería. He represents that young and enterprising Úbeda that is not afraid to innovate, that rejects the idea that being a World Heritage Site means becoming a silent city-museum.

The engine of Rock & Blues Fest

This March, Fran is the brains and muscle behind the Rock & Blues Fest (March 13 and 14 at Plaza de Toros). He has achieved something that seemed impossible: to bring legends such as Los Barones or Santi Campillo to a city of 35,000 inhabitants, uniting quality music with solidarity in favor of the AECC.

For a symbolic €3, it offers two days of music that in large cities would cost ten times more. It turns the Plaza de Toros into a temple of rock, demonstrating that historical structures can accommodate contemporary cultural expressions without losing dignity.

Its philosophy: living heritage, not mummified

Fran proves every day that being a World Heritage Site does not mean being anchored in perpetual reverential silence. That a city can honor its Renaissance past while embracing electric blues, intense metal, contemporary creativity.

Thanks to people like him, Úbeda sounds like distorted guitars as well as old bells. It smells of specialty coffee as well as convent incense. He moves to the rhythm of the present without denying the past.

La Tetería, which this year celebrates 28 years of cultural resistance, is a refuge for those who seek Úbeda beyond the official monuments: a space where students, artists, curious travelers meet without tourist ceremonies.

Why Your Rebellion Is Necessary

Because cities that only live from the past die slowly, they become theme parks without a real soul. Fran and other people from Úbeda of his generation are guaranteeing that the city has a future as well as history, that it attracts young people who want to live here, not just visit it for two hours.

Every concert he organizes, every cultural event he promotes, is an act of resistance against the idea that small cities are doomed to be depopulated or museumified.

La Tetería: Historic center (ask locals, everyone knows it) Rock & Blues Fest: March 13-14, tickets 3€ Atmosphere: Eclectic, cozy, consciously anti-corporate

The Nuns of Santa Clara and the Convent of the Conception: the invisible hands that sweeten with orange blossom and prayer

After the rotating lathe of the Convent of Santa Clara and those of the Convent of the Conception, life passes at a radically different pace from the outside world. You won’t see them strolling through Plaza Vázquez de Molina or sipping coffee on terraces, but their presence permeates the palate of every visitor who tastes their conventual sweets.

The edible legacy of centuries

In this March of passionate prelude prior to Easter, its turnstiles do not stop turning dispatching heavenly torrijas, doughnuts that seem to be made by angels, almond sweets whose recipes are centuries old transmitted orally from nun to novice.

The buying process is ritual in itself:

You approach the lathe, a small revolving window that preserves the enclosure. Flames with discreet timbre. From the other side, a friendly but invisible voice asks you what you want. You ask for your sweets, leave the money on the lathe, spin, and your sweets appear wrapped with almost maternal care. You never see the face of the one who made them, but you feel the devotion with which they were created.

Guardians of the Renaissance Snack

These nuns are involuntary custodians of the gastronomic tradition that is the best kept treasure of the city. In every bite of their sweets there are:

Prayer: because they work in contemplative silence, because each gesture is an act of devotion.

History: because the recipes they use are the same as those used by their predecessors in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.

Local identity: because they use almonds from the area, local honey, olive oil from Ubeda cooperatives, ingredients that anchor the sweets to this specific land.

Why your invisibility is your strength

Because in a hyperconnected world where everything is photographed and published, they maintain mystery, privacy, focus on a job well done without seeking public recognition.

They don’t have Instagram or a fancy website. Their marketing is the word of mouth of generations of people from Úbeda who have been buying sweets from them all their lives. Its mark is the trust accumulated over centuries.

When you taste their artisan sweets in March, knowing that they were made by hands you’ll never see, in convent cuisine you’ll never visit, following recipes that no one has written down, you experience something that modern tourism rarely offers: encounter with the genuine, the unadulterated, the true.

Convent of Santa Clara and the Convent of the Concepción: Historic center (ask exact location) Turnstile hours: Variable, better in the morning Tip: Bring cash, they do not accept card

Úbeda is its people, or it is nothing

When you come this March to experience the San Juan Jubilee Year, to taste the gastronomic anniversary menus, to vibrate with solidarity rock or to contemplate sunsets over infinite olive groves, remember this fundamental:

Every experience you live has been prepared, created, held by Ubeda hands. The clay you buy was molded by Paco. The dish that excites you was cooked by Kiko Peñuela. The concert you enjoy was organized by Fran. The sweet you savor was baked by the nuns.

They are the ones who make Ciudad Real beyond the tourist postcard. They turn a generic trip into an indelible memory. They guarantee that Úbeda is a living destination instead of a petrified museum.

The monuments impress. The landscape hypnotizes. But it is the people who change you, who make you come back, who turn your visit into a personal story that you will tell for years.

Come and discover Úbeda. But above all, come and meet the people of Úbeda. Because they are the true heritage of humanity.

Share your encounters with #GenteDeÚbeda and give visibility to those who keep the city alive.

The stones tell the past. People build the future. Úbeda has both.