Puebla del Príncipe

Switch off the engine on the edge of Puebla del Príncipe and the plateau answers back with silence. At 940 m the air thins just enough to sharpen the scent of thyme drifting from the surrounding wheat fields; the only interruption is the metallic clink of the church bell as it marks half past eleven. Six-hundred-and-seventy-one souls live here, scattered among lime-washed houses that turn butter-yellow under the Castilian sun. Guidebooks give the place eight lines; TripAdvisor gives it eight reviews. Both feel about right.

A plaza without a timetable

The village logic revolves around Plaza de la Constitución, a rectangle of packed earth and uneven flagstones where grandparents park their walking sticks rather than their cars. On the north side rises the parish church of San Bartolomé, a fifteenth-century tower of honey-coloured stone whose weather vane acts as an unofficial compass for anyone hiking the surrounding tracks. Step inside and the temperature drops ten degrees; the smell is of candle wax and the previous Sunday’s incense. There is no ticket desk, no audio guide, only a printed A4 sheet asking for one-euro donations towards roof repairs. Drop a coin and the caretaker—usually found next door drinking coffee—will appear with a key to unlock the side chapel so you can see the faded fresco of Saint Bartholomew flayed and smiling.

Wander any of the four streets that branch from the square and you are back in open countryside within three minutes. Houses here are built to the same template: a single wooden door big enough for a mule, a wrought-iron balcony where geraniums bake in old olive-oil tins, and a side alley leading to an interior patio where the family pig was once fattened. Many are empty; emigration to Madrid and Valencia has left a lace-work of hollow windows. Yet the place does not feel abandoned. Someone is always whitewashing a wall or sweeping dust into neat piles, working to the unhurried rhythm set by the church bell.

Bread, wine and the economics of nowhere

Puebla del Príncipe has two shops, two bars and zero petrol stations. The bakery opens at seven, sells out of crusty barras by nine, and closes once the owner’s grandson delivers the takings in a string bag. The smaller of the bars—Casa Agustín—offers three tapas: cured manchego, morcilla crumbled over bread, and a plate of migas pastoriles that tastes like Christmas stuffing without the sage. A glass of local Valdepeñas red costs €1.40 and arrives in a tumbler last polished by the previous customer’s napkin. Expect conversation to stop when you walk in; expect it to restart once you attempt the Spanish for “another, please”.

There is no tourist menu, no laminated card translating cordero segureño as “Segura lamb”. If you want lunch, you need to order before the television switches to the midday news; after that the stove goes off until evening. Vegetarians should ask for pisto manchego, a sweet-pepper ratatouille topped with a fried egg—about as close as Castile gets to meat-free.

Walking the chessboard plains

The surrounding Campo de Montiel resembles a giant chessboard: squares of wheat, squares of vines, squares of dusty green holm oak. Footpaths radiate from the village like spokes, following drovers’ routes that once carried merino sheep to winter pastures. Maps are sketched on the back of napkins; waymarking is sporadic but the topography is forgiving—roll rather than ravine. A popular loop heads south-east to the abandoned cortijo of Los Llanos, a stone manor slowly being dismantled by wind and wild fig. Allow ninety minutes there and back; take water because there is no bar, no fountain, and almost no shade between April and October.

Spring brings a brief, almost English green to the fields, plus a haze of crimson poppies that vanishes as suddenly as it arrives. By July the palette reverts to bronze and straw; the thermometer pushes 38 °C and sensible visitors siesta through the afternoon. Autumn is the sweet spot: clear skies, daytime highs of 22 °C and nights cool enough to justify the village log piles stacked against every south-facing wall.

When the village remembers it has a calendar

Festivity here is measured, not marketed. The fiestas patronales honour San Bartolomé on 24 August with a mass, a brass band that has clearly borrowed its uniforms from a larger town, and a communal paella cooked in a pan two metres wide. Visitors are welcome to queue for a plate but must bring their own chair. Earlier in the year, around the first Sunday of May, the spring fiesta fills the plaza with second-hand books, raffle tickets and children chasing balloons. Both events attract perhaps a hundred returning ex-poblanos; accommodation within the village is impossible, so most base themselves twenty kilometres away in Almagro.

Almagro, by the way, is where you will sleep. The Parador de Almagro—housed in a sixteenth-century convent—offers four-star comfort from £110 a night, while the smaller Hotel Retiro del Maestre charges about half that. Either way, book dinner before you leave Britain; Almagro’s restaurants fill with theatre-goers attending the Corral de Comedias during festival weekends.

Getting here, getting out

Madrid-Barajas is the nearest major airport. Collect a hire car, join the A-4 south, and two hours later leave the motorway at Manzanares. From there it is a further 35 minutes on the CM-412, a road so empty you can count the oncoming vehicles on two hands. Public transport is theoretical: one bus a day links Ciudad Real to Almagro; after that a taxi costs €30 and must be booked in advance. Fill the tank before you turn off the motorway—petrol is cheaper on the autopista and the village will not rescue you when the yellow light starts flashing.

Leave before dusk if you are driving in winter; the plateau ices over quickly once the sun drops. Summer drivers should carry water and a phone charger—there is no breakdown cover lurking behind the next hill because there is seldom a next hill, only horizon.

The honest verdict

Puebla del Príncipe will never feature on a “Top Ten” list. It offers no souvenirs, no selfie hotspots, no craft beer. What it does offer is a calibration service for urban clocks: a reminder that Spain still contains places where lunch is dictated by hunger, not by schedule, and where the loudest sound at night is the click of the church clock gearing up to strike twelve. Stay for an hour and you will wonder why you came; stay for a morning and you start calculating how soon you can return without the village thinking you eccentric. Measure your visit not in attractions but in heartbeats per minute—by that metric alone, Puebla del Príncipe delivers value no city can match.