Torre de Juan Abad

The road from the A-4 turns west at Manzanares and begins to climb. Within twenty minutes the olive groves shrink into bonsai size, the thermometer drops five degrees, and the wind tastes of thyme instead of diesel. At 812 metres Torre de Juan Abad appears: a single stripe of white houses pressed against a ridge, the sierra bruise-coloured behind. The village has no tower, whatever the name promises, and no traffic lights either. What it does have is the house where Francisco de Quevedo, the sharpest tongue of Spain’s Golden Age, spent his final years in internal exile—an unlikely literary bolt-hole that still keeps ordinary Castilian hours.

A Ridge Above the Plain

Altitude changes everything. In July, when Ciudad Real bakes at 38 °C, the main square still catches a breeze sharp enough to lift napkins off the café tables. Winters reverse the bargain: the 2021 cold snap left the place snow-locked for three days and burst pipes in the upper barrio. Spring arrives two weeks later than on the plain and departs just as early; if you want wild poppies threading the wheat, the window is mid-April to mid-May. Autumn is the most reliable season—warm days, cool nights, and the cereal stubble gold as a Velázquez background.

The village sits on the southern lip of the Campo de Montiel, a high plateau that drains towards the Guadiana. Walk ten minutes south-east and you are on the GR-41 footpath, a way-marked loop that drops into holm-oak dehesa before climbing to the ruined castle of Peñaflor. The round trip is 12 km and takes about three hours; carry water because the only bar en route is a summer-only hut that opens when the owner feels like it. For something shorter, follow the signed track to the Laguna de San Pedro, a seasonal marsh 4 km away. After a wet spring it holds enough water for avocets and black-winged stilts; in drought years it is an expanse of cracked clay loud with skylarks instead.

Quevedo’s House and Other Survivors

The Casa de Quevedo closes on Mondays, opens 11:00-14:00 the rest of the week, and costs three euros. English captioning is thorough—unusual for a village of 999 inhabitants—and explains why the poet was sent here in 1639: too many satirical verses about the prime minister. The rooms retain their 16th-century timber roofs and a faint smell of extinguished candles. In the patio you can still see the stone bench where, local tradition claims, Quevedo dictated his last sonnets to a servant boy who could not write.

Across Plaza Mayor, the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Olmos squats on its foundations like a solid Renaissance bull. The tower leans two degrees west after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake; inside, the gilded retablo is flanked by panels painted on raw wood, the pigment sinking into the grain like ink on blotting paper. The church is usually unlocked until 13:00; if the door is shut, the keys hang next door in the Casa de la Tercia, the village cultural centre whose staff speak serviceable English and will happily let visitors in.

Wander downhill from the square and you pass half a dozen manor houses still bearing their family coats of arms—lions, stars, and one incongruous fleur-de-lis carved in 1548 by a returning conquistador who had seen France on his way home from Flanders. Most are private, but the owners tolerate photo-snappers as long as you don’t peer through the grilles. At the lowest point of the village the street dissolves into a gravel track; beyond that, the cereal fields begin and the horizon reasserts itself.

What to Eat, Where to Sleep

There are two proper restaurants and one hotel. Hotel Rural Coto de Quevedo occupies a converted grain mill on the north edge; its eight rooms start at €70 including breakfast, and the restaurant will swap morcilla for grilled vegetables if you ask the night before. The menu centres on local lamb and Manchego cheese aged in cave-like cellars beneath the square. A three-course dinner with wine runs to €25—about what you would pay for a single main in central Madrid.

For something less formal, Café Bar Cervantes does a plato combinado of egg, chips and pork shoulder that British visitors have christened “Spanish comfort food after too much jamón.” Bread arrives in waxed paper, the coffee is proper stove-top, and the house wine costs €1.80 a glass. They prefer cash; the nearest ATM is 17 km away in Villanueva de los Infantes, so fill your wallet before you arrive.

If you are self-catering, the tiny grocer opposite the church sells vacuum-packed queso curado that passes UK hand-luggage rules and survives the flight home better than a bottle of olive oil. The weekly market sets up on Saturday morning: one stall for fruit, one for ham, one for kitchen pans, and a van that sharpens knives while you wait.

Timing and Troubles

August 15 weekend belongs to the Virgen de los Olmos fiesta. The population triples, every spare room is booked by Spanish cousins, and the plaza thumps with Latin pop until 04:00. If you want sleep, reserve elsewhere or arrive the following Tuesday when the village exhales and room rates drop by thirty percent.

Winter brings its own complications. The CM-412 that links Torre de Juan Abad to the motorway can ice over overnight; the local council spreads grit, but snow tyres are a sensible precaution from December to February. In summer the risk is not cold but solitude: many elderly residents shut their houses and decamp to grandchildren in coastal cities, leaving streets emptier than usual. The museum still opens, but the bars may close early if trade is slow.

A Useful Pause, Not a Pilgrimage

British drivers hammering the Madrid–Granada axis often stop only for petrol and a sandwich. Torre de Juan Abad offers a better bargain: ninety minutes off the motorway, a shot of mountain air, and the chance to stand in the room where one of Europe’s great satirists muttered his last rhymes. You do not need three days; a night is enough to walk the castle track, read Quevedo’s epitaph in the original Spanish, and be back on the A-4 before the morning heat thickens. Come for the altitude, the angle of light, and the quiet that first made a banished poet choose this ridge above the plain.