San Miguel de Aguayo

The church bell strikes eleven and nobody stirs. Not the three men leaning against the tractor outside the only bar, not the Labrador asleep across the doorway, and certainly not the cows grazing 830 metres above sea level on what must be Spain's most undervalued real estate. San Miguel de Aguayo doesn't do rush hours. It does morning mist that burns off by coffee time, and afternoons that smell of cut grass and wood smoke depending on which way the wind drifts across the Campoo valley.

High pastures, low pulse

Drive south from Santander airport and the temperature gauge drops a degree every ten minutes. By the time you leave the A-67 at Pesquera, the sea feels like someone else's holiday. The final six kilometres narrow to a single-track road that corkscrews upwards through sweet chestnut and oak. First-timers instinctively brake at every bend; locals simply honk twice and keep their foot down, trusting you'll find the passing place that probably isn't there.

What arrives is a scatter of stone houses that cling to a ridge like they've forgotten to let go. There's no centre to speak of, just a church, a playground with one swing, and the weekend bar that opens when the owner finishes feeding her hens. The 167 residents have learned to live with the fact that Google Maps still can't decide whether their village is a through-road or a dead end. Both are technically true.

The altitude changes more than the weather. Mobile signal becomes patchy, time slows, and conversations stretch to fill the gaps between swallows. British visitors expecting whitewashed Andalucían clichés will find something closer to a Yorkshire dale that's took a wrong turn at the Pyrenees. Dry-stone walls divide emerald pastures, hawthorn hedges bloom in May, and every gate seems to need the same shoulder-lift trick your uncle uses back in the Dales.

Walking without waymarks

Officially there are no signed footpaths. Unofficially, the entire valley is crisscrossed by cattle tracks that have been working commutes since before footpaths needed names. Start anywhere by the church, pick a track that heads uphill, and within twenty minutes the village shrinks to a handful of terracotta tiles between folds of hillside. Keep climbing and the views open onto a patchwork of meadows that runs all the way to the snow-dusted Peña Labra on the horizon. The only soundtrack is cowbells and your own breathing, both slightly out of rhythm.

Maps suggest gentle strolls; thighs tell a different story. What looks like a flat meadow on the drive in reveals itself as a series of limestone benches, each one steeper than the last. The compensation comes at dusk when low sun ignites the stone walls and every thistle head glows like a struck match. Bring a windproof layer even in July – Atlantic weather doesn't read the calendar, and at this height a blue morning can flip to sideways rain before you've tightened your boot laces.

What passes for facilities

The village shop closed in 2008. The nearest cashpoint is twelve kilometres away in Pesquera, and it shuts at eight. Smart visitors stock up in Reinosa on the way through: crusty bread from Panadería Alameda, a wheel of quesada pasiega (think lemon cheesecake meets baked custard), and something red to drink after the sun drops behind the ridge. There are no restaurants, no souvenir stalls, and absolutely nowhere to buy a fridge magnet. This is either a warning or a promise depending on your holiday priorities.

Accommodation amounts to two restored stone cottages and a farmhouse that takes paying guests when the owners' children have left for university. Las Casucas de Somavía has underfloor heating, Wi-Fi that works if the wind isn't blowing, and a terrace where you can watch the moon rise over one valley while the sun sets over another. At £90 a night it costs less than a Travelodge in Swindon, and the view comes with complimentary cowbells instead of motorway noise.

Eating what the altitude allows

Food here follows altitude, not fashion. Breakfast might be chorizo sliced so thick it needs chewing like steak, served on bread still warm from a Reinosa bakery. Lunch is mountain beef, grilled over oak until the edges crisp like roast beef dripping, but milder, almost sweet. Vegetarians learn to love potatoes – specifically cocido montañés, a clay-pot stew of white beans, cabbage and paprika that tastes better than it photographs. Local cider arrives in 750 ml bottles that demand to be poured from shoulder height into glasses the size of teacups. The technique looks theatrical; the result is a flat, apple-sharp drink that slips down easier than Strongbow and leaves less of a headache if you remember the water chaser.

When to come, when to stay away

April brings orchid spikes into the roadside grass and daytime temperatures that hover around 16 °C – T-shirt weather in the sun, fleece weather in the shade. September repeats the trick with added autumn colour and the village fiestas: one evening mass, one brass band, one street party that finishes before the British would even order a round. Both months offer eight hours of decent walking light and overnight lows that won't freeze your toothpaste.

Winter is a gamble. A dusting of snow turns the stone walls into monochrome graphic art, but the access road ices over quickly and the sun doesn't clear the ridge until nearly ten. Unless you've got winter tyres and a relaxed attitude to traction, January visits are best left to the locals who learned to drive on these gradients before ABS was invented.

August fills with Spanish families escaping coastal heat. Cottages book up six months ahead, prices edge upwards, and the silence acquires a soundtrack of children's scooters and late-night card games. It's still nothing like the Costas, but the sense of discovery evaporates when you meet someone from Madrid walking the same track.

Leaving without rushing

The village doesn't do farewells. Checkout involves leaving the key on the kitchen table and pulling the door until it clicks. Drive back down the corkscrew road and within fifteen minutes you'll pass a petrol station, a Burger King, and all the other conveniences you didn't miss. Somewhere around Pesquera the phone regains four bars of signal and the real world starts pinging for attention. The temptation is to promise yourself you'll return next spring. The smarter move is simply to remember how the air tasted at 830 metres, and how nobody asked what you did for a living before they said good morning.