Berdejo

The church bell tolls twice. Nobody appears. At 990 metres above sea level, Berdejo's stone houses grip the mountainside like barnacles on a shipwreck, their terracotta roofs bleached ochre by centuries of sun and wind. This is not one of those Spanish villages that tourism forgot – it's one that tourism never found. And that's precisely the point.

What remains when everyone leaves

Forty-two souls. That's fewer people than fit on a double-decker bus, yet they persist in this fold of the Sistema Ibérico, 100 kilometres south-east of Zaragoza. The village shrinks by roughly one resident each year; abandoned houses outnumber occupied ones by three to one. Their stone walls bulge, wooden balconies sag, and yet the place refuses to become a museum piece. Laundry still flaps on lines strung between buildings. Smoke rises from chimneys. Someone's growing lettuces in a terraced plot so steep it requires a rope for access.

The architecture tells no lies. Thick limestone walls, windows the size of postboxes, and roofs pitched to shrug off winter snow speak of winters where the mercury dips to -10°C. Summer brings relief – temperatures hover around 25°C when Zaragoza swelters at 35°C – but the wind never stops. It whips through the narrow lanes, rattling shutters and carrying the scent of wild thyme from the surrounding slopes.

Walking through the hollow lanes

Start at the church, naturally. The 16th-century building squats at the village's highest point, its squat tower visible for miles across the cereal plains below. Inside, faded frescoes peel like sunburn and the priest's vestments hang moth-eaten in a glass case. Opening hours are posted on a scrap of cardboard taped to the door: essentially, when someone's around. That someone is usually María, 78, who'll unlock it if she's finished feeding her chickens.

From here, lanes drop away in three directions. Take the middle one, Calle de la Carrera, where the gradient reaches 18% and medieval builders simply followed the rock's natural contours. Pass houses with dates carved above doorways – 1642, 1719, 1834 – and others where the doorway has collapsed entirely, revealing interior walls painted salmon pink or mint green, colours chosen decades ago when optimism ran higher.

The lane emerges onto a track that follows the contour line eastward. Within ten minutes, Berdejo sits below like a spilled handful of dice. The path continues through abandoned almond terraces where trees still fruit nobody harvests. After 45 minutes, reach the Ermita de la Virgen del Rosario, a chapel even smaller than the village church, locked permanently since 1998 when the last key-holder died. Sit on the wall. Listen. No cars, no voices, just wind and the distant clank of a goat bell.

The geography of abandonment

This landscape wasn't always so quiet. The terraces stretching for miles around Berdejo represent centuries of backbreaking labour, each stone wall built by hand to create level ground on slopes exceeding 30 degrees. Wheat, barley, olives and almonds once grew here, supporting a population that peaked at 312 in 1920. Then came rural exodus, mechanism, and the brutal mathematics of mountain farming: a hectare of almonds requires 40 hours of labour annually and generates €300 profit. Minimum wage pays that for 25 hours' work.

Now nature reclaims its own. Young pines push through terrace walls. Wild boar root up abandoned plots. Griffon vultures – reintroduced successfully across Aragón – ride thermals overhead, their two-metre wingspans casting moving shadows across the stone. For walkers, this creates a strange hybrid landscape: part agricultural museum, part wilderness. Paths exist because people once needed them, but signage doesn't. Download maps beforehand; phone signal dies two kilometres from the village.

Eating and sleeping (or not)

Let's be clear: Berdejo offers no restaurants, no bars, no shops. The last grocery closed in 2003. The last bar followed in 2009. Bring supplies or plan to drive 15 kilometres to Ainzón, where Bodegas Bordeje serves robust Cariñena wines and plates of jamón that taste of acorns and mountain air. Their lunchtime menu costs €14 including wine; book ahead because Spanish families arrive at 2pm sharp and don't leave before 5pm.

Accommodation within the village is impossible. Nearest beds sit in Calatayud, 35 minutes' drive north, where the Hotel México occupies a converted 16th-century palace (doubles from €55). Alternatively, rent a house in Ainzón through the tourist office – they'll arrange keys for properties sleeping four from €80 nightly, minimum two nights. The practicalities matter: after dark, mountain roads demand full attention. Deer appear without warning. Stone walls edge right to the tarmac. In winter, carry snow chains above 800 metres.

When to come, when to stay away

April delivers the best compromise: almond blossom paints the hills white, daytime temperatures reach 18°C, and you'll meet perhaps three other humans all day. May brings wildflowers and the first authentic risk of sunburn. October offers grape harvest colours but expect morning fog that doesn't lift until 11am.

Avoid August. The village's fiesta brings 300 visitors, mostly returning emigrants and their extended families. Streets clog with vehicles. Someone sets up a bar in the square. Music plays until 4am. It's fascinating anthropology but defeats the object of seeking silence. December and January bring snow at this altitude; roads become treacherous and Berdejo's residents hunker down, emerging only to tend animals or collect firewood.

The honest truth

Berdejo won't change your life. You won't discover yourself, find romance, or post photographs that make friends jealous. What you'll find is a place that refuses to perform for visitors, where the only entertainment is walking and the only soundtrack is your own breathing. Some people last twenty minutes before fleeing back to their cars. Others sit on the church wall for hours, watching light move across stone and understanding, perhaps for the first time, exactly how much effort it takes to keep even the smallest human settlement alive at 990 metres.

Drive away carefully. Those stone walls will still be crumbling next year, next decade, probably next century. Berdejo asks nothing of you, gives little back, and somehow that's enough.