Poblete

At 625 metres above sea level, Poblete sits high enough for the air to feel thinner than the Costa del Sol but low enough for summer to punch you in the face at 40 °C. The village rises off the flat cereal sea of La Mancha like a ship that ran aground on a Tuesday and decided to stay. From the edge of town you can see the faint blue outline of the Montes de Toledo, and if the wind swings north you’ll smell pig farms before you see them. This is not a place that flatters you; it simply lets you in.

A Plateau Scraped by Extinct Fire

Three hundred dead volcanoes litter the Campo de Calatrava, the nearest crater only a ten-minute drive from the church square. The cones look like grassy burial mounds now, but the soil still glints black where farmers have ploughed too deep. Local geologists hand out free maps that mark every caldera; follow the CV-405 south-west and you can park beside the Cerro de la Horca, walk a 3-kilometre loop, and stand inside a vent that last spat lava when Stonehenge was fresh. Take water—there is no kiosk, no interpretive centre, and the only shade is a ruined stone hut once used by goatherds. Spring brings waist-high poppies; winter can whistle in at minus six, so pack a fleece even if Madrid is balmy.

Back in the village, the volcanic stone turns up in walls, door lintels and the 1950s barbecue pits that every other garden seems to own. The church of Nuestra Señora de los Remedios was rebuilt after a fire in 1845 using the same dark rock; step inside and the nave feels oddly monochrome, as though the building is still cooling down.

A Town that Works in Two Time Zones

Poblete’s population swells to 5,000 on paper, but 1,800 of those are actually in Ciudad Real during daylight hours. The 17-kilometre commute takes twelve minutes on the A-43, which means the bakery can open at 7 am yet still sell out by 9.30. By 2 pm the streets go quiet; even the dogs seem to observe the siesta. The only movement is the occasional tractor towing a trailer of onions, and the British-registered Fiat 500 that missed the turning for the motorway services and is now circling the plaza for the third time.

There is no railway station, no taxi rank, and the weekday bus to Ciudad Real carries mainly schoolchildren. If you arrive without wheels, be prepared to walk two kilometres from the hotel to the crater trail, or sweet-talk the owner of the petrol station into calling his cousin who “sometimes does rides”. Car hire desks are plentiful at Madrid-Barajas; allow 1 hour 45 minutes on the A-4, then peel off at junction 229. Fuel is cheaper at the hypermarket outside Ciudad Real than on the motorway, so fill up before you arrive.

Food Meant for Field Hands

Lunch happens at 3 pm and is non-negotiable. The single sit-down restaurant, Casa Torrado on Calle Castillo, serves a fixed-price menú for €12 that starts with pisto manchego—La Mancha’s answer to ratatouille—followed by conejo al ajillo, rabbit simmered in a clay pot with enough garlic to stop a vampire at fifty paces. Vegetarians get a plate of migas: fried breadcrumbs, grapes and scraps of pepper. It sounds odd, tastes better than it sounds, and is exactly what you want after walking across a volcano in a 30-degree heatwave. Wine is Valdepeñas, served cold, and the waiters will keep refilling your glass unless you place a hand over it like a local.

Evening options shrink to two bars that open at 8 pm and close whenever the last customer leaves. Order a caña of beer and you’ll be handed a free tapa of manchego cheese; ask for a gin and tonic and you’ll get the Spanish pour—roughly 50 ml—so specify “un poco menos” if you plan to drive next morning. Sunday supper is mythical; most families eat at home, so plan on supermarket picnic supplies or drive into Ciudad Real where the tapas crawl around Plaza Mayor starts at 6 pm and still honours British stomach clocks.

When the Village Lets its Hair Down

The fiesta calendar kicks off in mid-January with San Antón: bonfires in the streets, sausages on sticks, and a priest who sprinkles holy water on tractors, dogs and the occasional Range Rover. September brings the main feria in honour of the Virgin of Los Remedios. For three days the polígono industrial becomes a fairground, the bakery sells custard-filled pastries called “boca de la Virgen”, and teenage brass bands march until 4 am. If you need sleep, ask for a room at the back of the hotel; the front faces the plaza where the sound system is stacked higher than the church tower. Book early—half of Ciudad Real books in to relive their childhoods.

A Base, not a Bubble

Poblete works best as a low-cost base rather than a selfie destination. From the village you can reach Almagro in 25 minutes for the seventeenth-century Corral de Comedias, still staging Golden-Age drama; the Tablas de Daimiel wetlands in 35 minutes for board-walk bird-watching; and the windmill ridge at Campo de Criptana in 40 minutes for the full Quixote fantasy without the coach-party queues. After dark you retreat to streets where the loudest noise is the clack of dominoes in the social club, and a double room costs €65 including underground parking and a pool that actually opens in summer (the neighbouring chain hotel charges €20 more for the privilege).

Come with tempered expectations. The village is tidy, not twee; the landscape is arresting, not adorable. Bring sturdy shoes, cash in small notes, and a Spanish phrasebook thick enough to include “¿A qué hora cenáis?” You will leave with dust on your boots, volcanic grit in your turn-ups, and the odd impression that you have seen the Spain Spaniards keep for themselves—just don’t expect them to make a fuss about it.