Valencia - Mountain Towns

There are at least 15 castles near Valencia, but many are just portions of a ruin. Chulilla is extremely small and you could get bored fairly quickly. There are outdoors activities however. North of Valencia is Peniscola Castle. It is on the coast, but there’s more to do in the town. Southwest of Valencia are the Castle of Biar and Atalaya Castle. They are close together. En route to those is Castle Bañeres. The closest I’ve been to Chulilla is Requena and there’s little to it. Many of the very small villages and hamlets don’t take long to visit. Some don’t even have grocery stores or banks and with few restaurants, so plan accordingly.

Edited: to follow up on acraven’s comment, Albarracín is great to visit as is Teruel. Albarracín is a 2hr 40min drive from Valencia and only slightly less from Chulilla. A nice walk near Teruel is the Camino Natural del Rio Guadalaviar. Round trip, it’s about 6 miles.

The roads between Cuenca and Teruel (N-420 and N-330) are perfectly fine, rural, and 2 lanes. There is very little traffic once you’re outside of towns. The drive would be just over 2 hours.

I gather you'll have a car. I haven't had one while in Europe, so I don't have a good sense of what is practical and what is not when you have your own wheels. ViaMichelin.com would be a good source for estimates of driving times.

The village of Albarracin, northwest of Valencia, is very difficult to reach without a car. It's very atmospheric, and an American expat told me she had relocated to the area because of the good rock-climbing opportunities. A bit closer to Valencia is the city of Teruel, which is the capital of its region but basically ignored by foreign tourists. Teruel has some interesting architecture, including mudejar towers. I believe the best way to approach those towns from Barcelona might be by taking one of the super-fast trains to Zaragoza and picking up a rental car there. However, there is a (slow) rail line between Zaragoza and Valencia that passes through Teruel.

Another interesting option in that general area is Cuenca, which has a medieval center up on a hill and a couple of good modern-art museums. However, Cuenca is easily visited without a car, being on the express rail line running between Madrid and Valencia. I have no idea what driving conditions would be like between Albarracin or Teruel and Cuenca.