Ossa de Montiel

At 901 m the air thins just enough to make the first beer taste better. Ossa de Montiel sits on a limestone ridge that feels more Castilian plateau than postcard Andalucía, and the view south is a chessboard of ochre wheat fields suddenly interrupted by a string of turquoise puddles—the Lagunas de Ruidera—glinting 300 m below. That drop explains the temperature gauge on the car dashboard: 4 °C cooler than the lakeside car park you left ten minutes earlier. Bring a fleece even in May.

The Village That Forgot to Shout

Five thousand inhabitants sounds sizeable on paper, but the old centre is three streets wide and takes nine minutes to cross at British strolling speed. Houses are whitewashed once a year before the fiestas, iron balconies hold geraniums in baked-tin cans, and the evening paseo still follows a strict counter-clockwise circuit round the church. Foreign number plates are rare enough that the woman in the bakery will ask which cottage you’ve rented and whether the track was passable.

There is no seafront promenade, no artisan ice-cream parlour, no souvenir shop. What you get instead is a functioning grain co-op, a chemist that closes for two hours at lunch, and a bar where the television is switched off so the owner can hear the football results from the transistor radio behind the counter. Order a caña and you’ll be given a saucer of olives and a view of the 16th-century Iglesia de la Asunción whose bell tolls the quarters even when no one appears to be listening.

Mud, Water and Don Quixote

The lagunas lie 12 km away by the fastest road, 8 km if you’re happy to bounce along a stone track used by local farmers. British families tend to treat the lakes as a private splash park: pedalos, stand-up boards and inflatable unicorns appear between 11 a.m. and the lunch siesta. The rules are simple—no motors, no wake, and if the car park by Laguna Blanca is full before ten, you’re already too late. Rangers turn away late-comers in August; the nearest alternative beach is an hour’s drive towards Albacete.

For walkers the park supplies a 22-km figure-of-eight path that links all fifteen lakes. The first section from the dam to Laguna Colgada is push-chair friendly; after that the trail climbs onto limestone bluffs where the reward is a wedge-tailed eagle circling at eye level and the realisation that you can hear your own heartbeat. Set off early: at midday the thermometer can jump 12 °C in as many minutes and there is almost no shade.

Literary pilgrims head 2 km further on to the Cueva de Montesinos. A metal grille covers a shaft that drops 30 m into the hill; a guide lowers you in a harness while recounting the episode in which Quixote believed he saw Dulcinea enchanted below ground. The entire visit lasts twenty minutes, helmet compulsory, and the temperature inside hovers at 14 °C year-round—perfect fridge for the can of Coke you wisely left in the car.

Castles Without Gift Shops

The Castillo de Peñarroya squats on a promontory that once guarded the order of Santiago’s southern frontier. What remains is a curtain wall, a rebuilt keep and an interpretation panel so sun-bleached you can’t read it. The charm is the approach: you leave the car beside the dam and walk the last kilometre along the overflow channel, frogs plopping into the water as you pass. From the battlements the lakes look like spilled paint—cobalt, teal, viridian—while behind you the cereal plain stretches to Toledo. Entry is free, opening hours are “whenever the gate isn’t locked”, and the only safety barrier is common sense.

Calories You’ve Earned

Manchego cuisine was invented for people who plough. Starters arrive in soup bowls: pisto manchego (think ratatouille topped with a fried egg), migas—fried breadcrumbs laden with garlic and chorizo—and gazpacho manchego which, confusingly, is game stew poured over unleavened tortas. Vegetarians survive on the pisto and the local sheep’s cheese, cured for eight months and served with membrillo quince paste that tastes like grown-up fruit gums.

Main courses are priced by the kilo. Half a kilo of roast lamb (€18) feeds two greedy adults; a full kilo (€30) needs four. The house wine is a pale clarete served chilled in a plain bottle—summer pudding in liquid form—and at 12 % it allows you to cycle back to the cottage without wobbling into the ditch. Weekday menú del día is €11 for three courses, bread and a drink; portions are calibrated to see farmers through until supper at ten.

When the Village Lets Its Hair Down

Fiestas begin on 12 August with a foam party in the bullring—health-and-safety Britain would shut it down in minutes, but here toddlers and grandparents alike slide about in suds to reggaeton blasted from a single speaker. Evenings follow a rigid timetable: outdoor paella on the plaza, fireworks over the lake at midnight, and a procession at dawn when the statue of the Virgen de la Asunción is carried between torch-bearers along the main street. Book accommodation before Easter; by July every spare room within 30 km is gone and the nearest campsite is 45 minutes away in Ruidera village.

The Practical Bits That Matter

Getting here: Fly to Alicante or Madrid, collect a hire car, aim for Tomelloso on the CM-3203, then follow signs for Ossa. Public transport is a single school bus on term-time weekdays—miss it and you’re stranded.

Cash: The village ATM dispenses €50 notes which nobody will change; bring twenties or use the supermarket till for cashback before noon.

Fuel: The Repsol in Tomelloso is the last 24-hour station; after that it’s a 50-km round trip when the fuel light blinks.

Weather: Winter nights drop to –5 °C; summer peaks hit 38 °C. Spring and autumn give 24 °C at midday and cool enough for a jacket after dark. If you come in July, start any walk before 8 a.m. and carry two litres of water per person.

Phones: 4G appears on the highest rooftop terrace and disappears the moment you step indoors. Download offline maps and screenshot your cottage access code before you leave the airport.

Parting Glance

Ossa de Montiel will not change your life. It will, however, remind you what Spanish villages were like before souvenir ashtrays and brunch menus. Come for the lakes if you must, but stay for the evening when the swifts screech over the church tower, the bar owner brings out a second barrel of clarete, and the only decision left is whether to walk one more circuit of the plaza or head back to the cottage before the Milky Way rises above the wheat.