Granátula de Calatrava

The road climbs gently from the A-4, then suddenly the land rips open. A perfect bowl of rust-coloured earth, 500 metres across, appears where wheat fields ought to be. This is Cerro Gordo, an extinct maar volcano whose rim lies five minutes’ drive from Granátula de Calatrava’s single traffic light. At 650 metres above sea-level the village sits higher than any UK city, and the air has the thin, bright snap that makes both mobile-phone signals and church bells carry further than seems reasonable.

Calatrava’s Shadow

Granátula’s name is a giveaway: it once belonged to the Knights of Calatrava, the mediaeval military order that bankrolled much of southern Spain’s Reconquest. Their fortress headquarters, Calatrava la Nueva, glowers from a crag 15 minutes away and is worth the detour before you even enter the village. Inside Granátula itself the evidence is subtler—narrow lanes of whitewashed houses, a stone coat-of-arms above a doorway, the 16th-century parish church whose tower doubles as the local mobile-mast. There is no interpretative centre, no gift shop, just the sense that the order’s accountants might ride back in at any moment to check the ledgers.

The church, Nuestra Señora de la Expectación, is usually open between 10:00 and 11:30 on weekdays. Step inside and the temperature drops ten degrees; the simple baroque retablo glints with gilt paint rather than real gold, a reminder that this was always a working village, not a courtly one. Outside, the plaza is the size of a London roundabout, shaded by four plane trees and a single bar terrace where coffee still costs €1.20 if you stand at the counter.

Inside the Crater

The volcano is the reason most outsiders stop. Ring +34 926 868 131 at least two days ahead; a guide will meet you at the locked gate on the crater track. Without that call you will simply stare through the fence like everyone else who “thought it would be obvious once we got there”. The walk is an easy 3 km loop, but the surface is cinder-dry and rolls underfoot like broken biscuits. Trainers are fine in dry weather; after rain the track turns to maroon paste that will ruin white shoes forever.

From the rim the view stretches 30 km across La Mancha’s cereal ocean. In April the crater lip is polka-dotted with poppies and wild lavender; by July the vegetation has given up and the interior resembles a Martian football stadium. Allow an hour, two if you’re the sort who photographs every lava bubble. The guide keeps the geology brief—magma met groundwater, steam exploded, earth collapsed, job done 4,000 years ago—and then leaves you to sit on the edge while kestrels hover in the updraft. Entry is free but a €5 tip keeps the tours running.

Bread, Wine and Pig

Back in the village, lunch options are limited to two bars and a bakery that sells out by 11:00. Bar Centro, on the plaza’s north side, lists exactly eight tapas: pisto manchego (think Spanish ratatouille topped with a fried egg), migas (fried breadcrumbs with chorizo), morcilla, queso manchego, jamón, boquerones, calamares and tortilla. Nothing costs more than €3.50; order three plates and you’ve had dinner. The local white, Blanco de Mancha, is poured from a plastic jug kept in the fridge and tastes like Sauvignon that’s been to finishing school—dry, sharp, happy with food.

If you’re self-catering, the grocery opposite the town hall stocks cured manchego at €14 a kilo, half the UK airport price, and vacuum-packs it for the journey home. Sunday lunchtime everything shuts; fill the tank and buy water on Saturday evening or you’ll be eating crisps in the car.

When the Wind Whistles

At this altitude winters bite. Daytime temperatures can stay below 5 °C and the famous La Mancha wind—el azote de los molinos—drives straight from the Meseta with nothing to block it but your coat. Between December and February the volcano track is officially closed; even locals stick to the road. Spring and autumn are the sweet spots: 20 °C at noon, cool enough at dawn for a fleece, and enough daylight to pair Granátula with nearby Almagro (12 km) and its 17th-century open-air theatre.

Summer is doable if you shift your timetable Spanish-style. Hike the crater at 08:00, retreat indoors between 14:00 and 18:00, re-emerge for the 20:30 paseo when the entire village circles the plaza twice before dinner. July nights are spectacular—no light pollution, the Milky Way brighter than you knew possible—but you will share the pavement with geckos and the odd grazing sheep that has worked out how to open garden gates.

Getting There, Getting Out

Granátula sits 200 km south of Madrid and 110 km north of Córdoba, both reached in under two hours on the A-4. The village exit is signposted, but the sign is small and bent; set the sat-nav to “Cerro Gordo visitor car park” instead. A normal hire car handles the crater track, but expect to return it the colour of digestive biscuits. There is no bus service on weekends; weekday buses from Ciudad Real connect with Almagro, but the midday timetable means you either arrive at dawn or leave at dusk. Without wheels you’re stuck.

Combine the village with Calatrava la Nueva castle (opens 10:00–14:00, 16:00–18:00, €5) for a half-day detour that breaks up the long motorway haul. The two sites balance each other—one human, one geological—so you leave feeling you’ve understood both the people and the ground they stand on.

Worth It?

Granátula will never compete with Seville’s palaces or Barcelona’s tapas crawls. It offers instead the small satisfactions of an unhurried place: the way church bells echo inside the crater, the bakery smell at 07:00 when the bread comes out, the surprise of finding a Knights Templar cross carved into somebody’s front door. Come if you like your Spain plain-spoken, slightly windswept and with a volcano in the back garden. Bring a phrasebook, cash and an empty water bottle—the volcano rim is dry, and the village tap water is some of the clearest in Spain.