Conquista

The church bell tolls midday and every shutter on Plaza de España flips open as if pulled by the same string. A woman in house slippers appears with a plastic colander of breadcrumbs, scattering lunch for the pigeons while the barman wheels a chalkboard into the sun: solomillo con patatas – €9. This is Conquista, 596 m up on the northern lip of Córdoba province, population 371, where nothing happens on schedule except the roasting of coffee beans at Bar-Restaurante Andalucía and the weekly pig-feed run on Tuesday market day.

The Dehesa that Pays the Bills

Drive in along the CO-3104 and the village looks like a white sugar cube dropped onto a green baize table. The land billows in every direction, a patchwork of holm-oak pasture called dehesa that pays the mortgage on most family houses. These trees are not decoration; they fatten free-range Iberian pigs from October to February, when the acorns fall and the animals double in value. Come late winter you may meet a pick-up loaded with squealing hams heading to the matanza – the traditional home slaughter – and if you are politely curious the driver might point you to a cousin who still makes blood pudding in his garage. It is not a show, and there is no gift shop: just a neighbour who needs an extra pair of hands to stir the pot.

The same woodland supplies the walking that most visitors actually manage. Forget lofty peaks; this is a walkers’ nursery slope. A 6-km loop, way-marked with splashes of yellow paint, leaves the cemetery gate, dips into a valley of heather and rockrose, then climbs gently back on a Roman-era drovers’ road still scored by ancient cartwheels. Allow two hours, plus another thirty minutes if you stop to watch red kites circling overhead. Sturdier boots and a picnic can stretch the outing to neighbouring Villaralto, but carry water – the only fountain is in Conquista and cafés in the hamlets open when the owners feel like it.

Eating without Showmanship

Food here is farm fuel, not Instagram fodder. Order gazpacho moreno in August and you receive a terracotta bowl of bread, garlic and smoked pimentón topped with a poached egg – closer to a winter stew than the chilled tomato soup Brits expect. Spring brings chanfaina, a rice dish bulked out with pork liver and mint, and if you are lucky the baker still has hornazo, a lardy Easter pie thick with chorizo and hard-boiled egg. Vegetarians should ask for migas made only with peppers and grapes; the kitchen will oblige but eyebrows will rise.

The safest bet for cautious palates is the grilled pork fillet at Bar-Restaurante Andalucía on the corner of Calle Real. The meat arrives sizzling on a steel plate, chips already dressed in coarse salt, and a simple lettuce heart dressed with olive oil sharp enough to make you pucker. A glass of dry Montilla-Moriles white costs €2.20 and tastes like fino sherry that has decided to calm down. Pudding choices rarely exceed flan or supermarket ice-cream; flan is the better gamble.

When the Village Wakes Up

Conquista is sleepy, not comatose. Market day (Tuesday) pulls in stallholders from Pedroche and Santa Eufemia: tarpaulin tables piled with cheap socks, kitchen knives and pyramids of shiny peppers. The volume rises, the single cash machine outside the town hall runs out of €20 notes by eleven, and the plaza smells of churros and diesel. Stay twenty minutes and you will hear every regional accent from Lancashire to Aberdeen; the village sits on the cross-country route between Seville and Granada, making it a convenient leg-stretch for motorhomes.

August fiestas deliver the only genuine crowd of the year. The programme is pinned up in the bakery window and follows a pattern refined since Franco’s time: mass at ten, brass band procession at eleven, free paella for all at two, and disco in the sports pavilion from midnight until the Guardia Civil suggest the volume drops. Visitors are welcome but there are no bilingual announcements; watch what everyone else does and bring earplugs if you intend to sleep before four.

Getting There, Staying Over

The closest airport is Seville; Málaga is further but often cheaper from regional UK hubs. Hire a car, aim for the A-4, then peel off onto the N-432 towards Badajoz. After Espiel the road narrows, sheep wander across the tarmac, and phone signal flickers out – your cue that Conquista is five minutes away. Public transport exists on paper: a Monday-to-Friday bus from Córdoba at 14:30, returning at 06:20 next day. Unless you fancy a 14-hour stay, the car is essential.

Rooms are the weak link. The village itself has no hotel, only a pair of village houses let privately as casas rurales (search “El Recuerdo” or ask inside the bakery). Most overnighters base themselves twenty minutes away in Villanueva de Córdoba where Hotel Las Rosas has serviceable doubles for €55 including garage parking. Day-tripping from Córdoba city is perfectly doable – 90 minutes each way – but you will need to leave before dusk if unconfident on unlit mountain bends.

What the Brochures Leave Out

Summer heat is fierce; thermometers nudge 38 °C by mid-June and the only air-conditioned space is the chemist. Conversely, winter can dip below freezing; the same houses built to stay cool become refrigerators, and wood-smoke drifts through the streets like a scene from a Victorian novel. Rain is brief but torrential: the main street turned river in March 2022 and washed away half the terrace chairs.

Sunday closures are almost total. Arrive after 14:00 and you will find shuttered bars, empty benches and a single open door – the church, where the priest keeps a vending machine that dispenses lukewarm cans of Coca-Cola for €1. Photographers banking on golden-hour charm should note the plaza faces north; evening light dies behind the church tower and the white walls turn a flat grey. Sunrise is the money shot, best captured from the cemetery hill where the dehesa unfurls below in soft amber.

Worth the Detour?

Conquista will never compete with Úbeda’s Renaissance palaces or the Caminito del Rey’s thrills. It offers instead a calibration check for travellers who think they have “done” Andalucía. Spend an hour over coffee, another wandering the oak tracks, buy a lump of queso payoyo from the Tuesday cheese van, and you will have seen the village at its honest pace. Drive away before lunch or stay for the evening star show – the Milky Way is still visible here once the last bar bulb snaps off. Either way, Conquista will not beg you to remain, and that, refreshingly, is part of its appeal.