Lalueza

At 285 m above sea level, Lalueza sits low for Aragón but still high enough to give the horizon a tilt. From the church tower the land flattens into a 270-degree sweep of wheat, barley and fallow soil that changes colour faster than the Pennines on a moody April day. In late May the cereal is ankle-high and emerald; by mid-July it has turned blonde and brittle, crackling under the tyres of the few cars that leave the A-120 for the village access road.

The Village That Refuses to Pose

There is no postcard plaza. The main square is a rectangle of tarmac shaded by a single line of plane trees and flanked on one side by the 16th-century parish church and on the other by the bakery, the only business guaranteed to be open before eight. The façades are stone below, adobe above, their upper balconies painted the same ox-blood red you see all over the Ebro basin. A couple of houses have been done up with London-bright front doors; most have not. The overall effect is honest rather than pretty, the architectural equivalent of a farmer wiping his hands on overalls before shaking yours.

Inside the church the air smells of candle wax and dust. The nave is wider than it is long, a reminder that congregations here were once measured by field labour, not pew rent. A side chapel keeps a painted wooden Virgin whose robes are touched thin by 200 years of fingertips. Drop a euro in the box and the sacristan will switch on the lights long enough to see the gilding; otherwise you view her by the spill of sunlight through the open door.

What the Plain Hides

Los Monegros likes to masquerade as empty steppe, yet the fields around Lalueza hide Europe’s highest density of steppe birds. Drive any farm track at dawn – the GR-45 running west towards Used is the easiest – and you’ll hear the castanet call of pin-tailed sandgrouse long before you spot their bullet-shaped flight. Little bustards perform half-hearted leks in stubble left for soil structure; with patience (and binoculars) you can clock eight species before the sun burns off the haze. Bring a scope if you have one: the birds are approachable, but the heat shimmer starts early.

Summer walking is best finished by eleven. The village tourist office – one desk inside the ayuntamiento – hands out free topo-maps that mark two circular routes: 7 km south to the ruined Ermita de la Virgen del Rosario, 12 km north-east to the abandoned grain depot at Fuentes de Ebro. Both are flat, unsigned but impossible to lose: keep the cereal on one side, the sky on the other. In winter the same tracks turn to gloop; wellies, not walking boots, are the local choice.

Eating Between Harvests

Lalueza’s agricultural calendar still dictates menus. From mid-June to early July the baker makes coca de chicharrones, a soft focaccia scattered with crispy pork belly that sells out before ten. The rest of the year you get plain country loaf, good for mopping up migas – fried breadcrumbs threaded with garlic, grapes and thin rashers of pancetta. Order it in Bar Centro (the only place serving lunch on weekdays) and they’ll bring a ceramic bowl big enough for two; the price is €8 and includes a quarter-litre of house red that tastes better than it should.

Weekend evenings see the lights on at Asador El Cordero, 200 m past the church. Their ternasco – milk-fed lamb roasted whole in a wood-fired oven – arrives with nothing more than roast potatoes and a jug of pan juices. A half-kilo portion feeds three; expect to pay €18 a head with wine. Vegetarians get grilled artichokes and piquillo peppers, both grown in the irrigated plots south of the village. Pudding is usually cuajada, a set ewe’s-milk yoghurt drizzled with local honey; the flavour is clean, slightly sharp, the dairy equivalent of a cool morning on the plain.

Getting There, Staying There

No-one arrives by accident. The nearest railhead is Tardienta AVE station, 30 km away on the Zaragoza–Huesca line. There are usually two taxis loitering outside the platform; if both are gone, ring Radio Taxi Huesca (+34 974 22 22 22) and wait 25 minutes. From the UK the simplest route is Ryanair to Zaragoza, then hire-car: 55 minutes on the AP-2, leave at junction 6, follow the A-120 past Sariñena and turn right at the wind turbines. Petrol is cheaper than Britain but not cheap; fill up in Lalueza itself – the village still has a fuel pump, a rarity in Los Monegros.

Accommodation is the weak link. Lalueza has no hotel, only two self-catering flats above the bakery that rent by the week. Most visitors base themselves in Sariñena, 20 km east, where Hotel Las Almunias has serviceable doubles from €65 and a pool that catches the afternoon breeze. If you want character, book Casa Lueza in the hamlet of Alueza (confusing, yes) – a restored manor with Romanesque arches and thick stone walls that keep July heat at bay.

When to Come, When to Leave

April and late-September give you 24 °C days and cool nights; the wheat is either young or freshly stubble, and the sky carries cumulus instead of the metallic glare of August. Avoid mid-July to mid-August unless you enjoy 38 °C and a village that smells of hot straw. Winter is oddly beautiful – the plain turns silver with frost, and you can walk all day without seeing a soul – but services shrink to one bar and a bakery that opens three mornings a week.

Leave before the fiestas if you dislike organised noise. The harvest festival over the last weekend of August brings marching bands, dust-raising quad-bike races and all-night dancing in the square. Rooms within 30 km vanish months ahead; if you must come, book early and bring earplugs. The rest of the year Lalueza goes to bed by ten, and the only soundtrack is the hum of irrigation pumps and, very occasionally, the gravelly call of a stone-curlew drifting across the dark.