Cubla

The church tower appears first. Rising from a fold in the Sierra de Javalambre, it materialises like a compass needle against empty sky, 1,088 metres above sea level and forty minutes' drive from the nearest supermarket. By the time the hire car wheezes up the final ramp, the village of Cubla has already revealed its most striking statistic: sixty souls, one public telephone box, zero traffic lights.

This is astronomy country. Two Starlight certificates—the gold standard for dark-sky quality—mean British observers swap dewy Dorset evenings for a place where the Milky Way casts shadows. On a clear winter night the temperature drops to –8 °C, yet the reward is a sky so black that the Andromeda Galaxy is visible to the naked eye from the cemetery wall. The municipal observatory, basically a fibreglass dome bolted to a concrete plinth, opens on request. Email a week ahead; the caretaker’s English is better than most GCSE students and he’ll lend you a red-filtered torch so your night vision stays intact.

Daylight brings different arithmetic. The village measures four streets by three, paved in roughly trimmed limestone that turns slick after rain. Stone houses, their wooden balconies painted ox-blood red or Brunswick green, sit shoulder-to-shoulder like elderly relatives at a wedding—no one willing to be the first to leave. Thyme grows from roof tiles; swallows nest in the bell-tower loudspeaker. Walking from end to end takes six minutes unless you stop to read the 1950s ceramic street signs, each letter hand-painted in cobalt blue.

There is no centre, only a gentle slope that tips towards the grain store. The bar, open weekends outside July and August, doubles as the bread counter and gossip exchange. Inside, a single espresso costs €1.20 and comes with a paper sachet of biscuits that Britons last saw on 1980s railway buffets. Payment is cash only; the card machine was “sent away for repair” in 2019 and nobody has chased it.

What Cubla lacks in commerce it returns in walking territory. Tracks leave the last house as if impatient for company. Head south-east and you drop into the Rambla de Cubla, a dry riverbed flanked by Scots pine and prickly pear. Griffon vultures circle overhead; boar prints cross the sand like drunken commas. After 45 minutes the path climbs onto a wind-scoured ridge where the only sound is the rasp of cicadas and, somewhere below, the distant whine of the A-23 motorway—a reminder that civilisation is 25 km away but feels like 200.

Maps are advisable. Signposts appear every kilometre or so, usually pointing in two directions at once. Mobile coverage vanishes in the valleys; download the IGN 1:25,000 sheet before leaving home. In summer the shade temperature sits a full five degrees cooler than coastal Valencia, but carry water—fountains are decorative rather than functional. Winter walkers need micro-spikes; January snow can fall 20 cm deep and the council grader reaches the main road only after the school bus route is clear.

The village relationship with weather is practical, almost conversational. Locals greet each other with “¿Ha entrado el frío?”—has the cold arrived yet?—instead of hello. Houses wear their winter wardrobe: wooden shutters the colour of paprika, straw-coloured chimney smoke that smells of almond shells. Inside, walls are half a metre thick; you can feel the temperature drop as you cross the threshold. Heating is pellet stoves or olive-wood fires, both available from the agricultural co-op in Camarena del Río, five kilometres down the hill. A 15 kg sack costs €4.50 and lasts three chilly evenings.

Food shopping follows the same just-in-time logic. The nearest proper supermarket is in Sarrión, 18 km west, but the bakery van calls on Tuesday and Friday mornings, honking outside the church. Stock up on migas loaves—dense, crusty bread designed to be torn into breadcrumbs then fried with garlic, grapes and scraps of Teruel ham. The ham itself, sweet and less salty than the Andalusian cousin, is sold vacuum-packed from a fridge in the butcher’s garage. A 100 g packet costs €3.80 and survives the Ryanair cabin bag home.

Evenings revolve around the sky. As the sun slips behind Sierra Menera the temperature plummets; cardigans are replaced by down jackets without discussion. Streetlights, all six of them, flicker on at 10 p.m. and off again at 6 a.m. to save the council €46 a month. The result is a darkness rural Britain last tasted in the 1970s. Satellites pass overhead like polite commuters; the ISS times its appearance on a WhatsApp group whose members include retired teachers from Coventry and a Berkshire GP who brings his own 8-inch reflector each September.

Winter guests often base themselves here for the Javalambre ski station, 25 minutes away by a road that switch-backs through black-pine forest. A day pass costs €32—roughly half the Pyrenees price—and weekday queues rarely exceed five minutes. The same slopes double as a mountain-bike park from May onwards; the chairlift carries riders to 1,950 metres where single-track descends through rosemary scrub to the village reservoir, a turquoise splash that supplies drinking water and weekend picnics.

Accommodation is limited but adequate. Three stone cottages have been restored with under-floor heating and UK plug adapters; owners leave welcome hampers of local honey and a note explaining which light switch works the water heater. Expect nightly rates of €70–90 for two, plus a €20 surcharge if you arrive after 10 p.m.—the key-holder has to cycle from the next hamlet. There is no hotel, no pool, no spa music. Instead you get absolute silence broken, at 7 a.m., by the church bell that rings the hour and then, as an afterthought, the half.

Leaving feels like adjusting the volume after a silent film. The road drops towards Teruel and mobile signal returns in a rush of notifications. In the rear-view mirror Cubla shrinks to a single terracotta dash on a limestone ridge. The tower is still visible, tiny yet insistent, like a bookmark in a sky the village has never stopped reading.