Farlete

The church bell strikes noon and the temperature gauge on the pharmacy wall reads 38 °C. A single swallow wheels overhead, the only movement in Farlete’s main square besides the slow rotation of the village’s one bar umbrella. This is the Monegros in midsummer: Spain’s own badlands, where the Ebro valley tilts toward the Pyrenean rain-shadow and the earth turns the colour of burnt terracotta.

At 413 m above sea level, Farlete sits low enough to avoid mountain snow-drifts yet high enough to catch the full force of the cierzo, the north-west wind that can sand-blast paintwork clean. The 376 inhabitants have built accordingly: thick adobe walls the colour of biscuit, roofs pitched to deflect the wind, and doorways set deep into stone frames like eyes narrowed against glare. There is no soft prettiness here; instead, the village has the honest, sun-worn face of somewhere that has worked out how to survive.

Stone, Adobe and Silence

A walking loop takes twenty-five minutes if you march, longer if you let the details accumulate. Start at the fifteenth-century Iglesia de San Pedro, its tower rebuilt after the 1936 shelling, and follow Calle Mayor past houses whose lower stones are darker, recycled from Roman or Moorish predecessors. Notice the wooden doors bleached silver-grey, the iron knockers shaped like tiny hands, the occasional blue pottery tile wedged into a wall to ward off evil. At the far end, the street dissolves into a farm track; beyond that, the steppe begins.

There is no ticket office, no audioguide, no gift shop. The heritage is the fabric itself, maintained by families who still whitewash their own façades each spring. Peek through the open gateway of a corral and you may see a tractor from the Franco era parked beside a stack of irrigation pipes. The smell is of diesel, hot earth and, if the wind shifts, of cumin from someone’s lunchtime sofrito drifting out of an upstairs window.

Birds, Bikes and Empty Roads

Leave the village by the signed footpath at the cemetery and within ten minutes the horizon stretches 40 km in every direction. This is Europe’s last stronghold for the great bustard; with patience and a pair of 8×42 binoculars you can watch males inflate their white throat feathers like feathered balloons in March displays. Stone curlews bark from the scrub, and black-bellied sandgrouse clatter overhead at dawn, heading for water troughs.

Cyclists appreciate the same emptiness. The loop south-east past the ruined farm of El Sabinar is 28 km of rolling gravel with exactly one tree offering shade. Carry two litres of water per person; the village fountain is potable but the next tap is 15 km away. Road-bikers can stitch together minor tarmac roads forming a 55 km circuit via Sástago and back along the N-232, usually meeting more hoopoes than cars.

What arrives on the daily bread van

Food here is calibrated to drought. Thursday’s mobile shop brings crusty barra from Zaragoza and, if you preorder, a box of seasonal vegetables—perhaps a clutch of wrinkled tomatoes that taste of concentrated sunshine, or a handful of flat green beans the locals call “ejotes”. The bar on Plaza Mayor opens at 07:00 for farmers’ breakfasts: coffee with a dash of brandy, and a slab of migas—fried breadcrumbs riddled with garlic and scraps of chorizo—for €3.50.

Lunch might be a bowl of gachas, a paprika-thickened porridge that looks like nursery food until the first spoonful reveals the smoky depth of José María’s home-cured pork. The wine list is short: Campo de Borja garnacha, naturally warm from the shelf, served in a glass tumbler for €1.80. Pudding is optional; most customers finish with anise and a second coffee before heading back to the fields for the 15:00 shift.

When to come, and when to stay away

March brings almond blossom and daytime highs of 18 °C, ideal for walking before the steppe flowers fade. May and June serve up 13 hours of sunshine but UV indices of 9–11; British complexions need factor 50 and a wide-brimmed hat. July and August are frankly hostile: 40 °C is common, the wind feels like a hair-dryer, and the village empties as families flee to the coast. Autumn returns the birds—lapwings, golden plovers—and paints the stubble fields the colour of pale ale. Winter is crisp and often windless; nights drop to freezing but clear skies deliver star-scapes you simply don’t see at home.

Accommodation within Farlete itself is limited to two rural houses: Casa Rural La Capacha (two doubles, small pool, English spoken) and the slightly spartan El Rincón de los Monegros (sleeps six, no wi-fi). Both cost around €80 per night for the whole property, so mid-week bargains exist outside fiesta season. The nearest hotel with a reception desk is ten kilometres away in Sástago; book early if you need reliable internet.

Getting here without the drama

Ryanair’s Stansted–Zaragoza flight lands at 11:40 local time; collect a hire car and you can be in Farlete by 13:00, pausing only for petrol and a sandwich in the Ebro service area. The last 12 km weave through irrigated olive groves that feel almost Tuscan until the road crests a ridge and the steppe suddenly flips open like a book. There is no train, and the Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday bus from Zaragoza arrives at 18:55—too late for the bakery, so stock up in the city first. Sunday drivers note: the village petrol pump is card-only and frequently empty; fill up in Alagón.

The quiet fiesta and the louder one

Farlete’s main fiesta honouring the Virgen de Agosto runs from 12–16 August. Emigrants return, the population doubles, and Plaza Mayor hosts open-air dancing that winds up at 05:00. Visitors are welcome but don’t expect bilingual signage; bring cash for the €5 grilled-sausage supper and prepare to answer questions about Brexit over a plastic cup of beer. A smaller, more atmospheric event is the Día de la Trilla in late October, when a pair of mules still circles the stone threshing floor, dragging wooden sledges that separate wheat from chaff. Children chase the grain husks like confetti while their grandparents swap seed prices in impenetrable Aragonese.

Leave time for a final walk at dusk. The sun drops behind the Sierra de Alcubierre, the wind drops, and the stone walls release the day’s stored heat so that the village smells faintly of warm bread. A British visitor once described Farlete as “the nowhere in the middle of everywhere”; stand on the anti-aircraft bunker above the cemetery and you’ll see what he meant—olive groves to the north, desert to the south, and a single string of streetlights marking the village that refuses to vanish.