Villanueva de los Infantes

The clock on the tower of San Andrés strikes eleven, yet the Plaza Mayor remains in morning shadow. At 880 metres above sea level, the sun takes its time clearing the encina tops, and the stone arcades keep their cool until well past noon. This is Villanueva de los Infantes, a town that literature has tried to claim more than once: Quevedo died here in 1645; Cervantes is said—without proof—to have planted his most famous creation somewhere along these arcaded streets.

A Square That Still Works

Three sides of the Plaza Mayor are still porticoed, the Tuscan columns holding up houses whose ground floors sell bread, nails and lottery tickets rather than fridge magnets. Elderly men in flat caps occupy the terrace of N’Trebraxas for the pre-lunch caña, a ritual that peaks at 13:30 when the church bell reminds everyone that kitchens will close in an hour. Visitors expecting all-day dining learn quickly: order the menú del día before 15:00 or wait until 20:30. El Rincón de la Plaza, opposite the ayuntamiento, will only accept cash—no apology, just a handwritten notice that the card machine “se estropeó hace años”.

The square’s fourth side opens towards the meseta, giving a view of wheat stubble that stretches to the next village nineteen kilometres away. In August the wind drags dust across the flagstones; in February it carries snow that melts by lunchtime. Spring and autumn are kinder, and the terraces fill with families sharing plates of pisto manchego and glasses of La Mancha tempranillo that cost €2.20 a pop.

Stone, Iron and a Grave

Francisco de Quevedo lies inside the Iglesia de San Andrés beneath a slab added centuries after his death. The church door is usually locked; ring the bell and a sacristan appears, wipes his hands on a tea towel, and lets you in for a voluntary €1 coin. The retablo is sixteenth-century, gilded so thickly it seems bronze rather than wood, but most visitors peer past it towards the floor. “Aquí yace,” the inscription says—here he lies—though no one can point to the exact spot. Outside, the tower rises in warm ochre stone; swifts circle it, screaming like faulty hinges.

Two minutes away, the Convento de Santo Domingo keeps Renaissance dignity behind a door that may or may not be open. If it is, the cloister rewards the walk: double columns, carved acanthus, and a silence broken only by the fountain that supplied the town during the 1805 drought. The Hospital de Santiago, now the town hall, displays its plateresque portal above a disabled ramp installed in 2009; the blend is clumsy but honest, a reminder that 5,000 people still call this place home.

Food for the Altitude

Altitude sharpens hunger. Gachas—flour, water, olive oil and garlic—sound austere until the ceramic bowl arrives steaming, topped with chorizo crumbs and a poached egg. Migas, fried breadcrumbs with grapes and bacon, are served on Sunday mornings at Bar El Pilar; locals chase each mouthful with a sip of sweetened coffee. Vegetarians are not turned away: ask at La Fonda de Quevedo and the kitchen produces a pisto studded with home-grown peppers, no surcharge.

Dessert is less challenging than the names suggest. Alfonsinos, small genoise discs glued together with cream and capped with white icing, were invented by a baker called Alfonso in 1952 and have become the town’s calling card. Children usually abandon them halfway; the sponge is airy, the cream barely sweet, a safe choice for palates used to Mr Kipling. If that fails, Pizzeria Milagros Navarro on Calle Granada does a perfectly respectable margherita for €7.50.

Windmills Without Quixote

The Campo de Montiel rolls south and east, a sea of holm oak and stone-pine that once fed the navy with charcoal. A tarmac road strikes out towards the Lagunas de Ruidera thirty kilometres away; on Saturdays it fills with cars from Ciudad Real seeking water that is turquoise in the brochures and pea-green after a dust storm. Better to stay closer and walk the old drove road to Alhambra, twelve kilometres of gentle gradient, no shade, and a bar that may be closed when you arrive. Take water—more than you think—because the breeze at 880 metres is deceptive; sunstroke arrives faster than at sea level.

Winter reverses the problem. Night temperatures drop to –8 °C, and the occasional Audi spins on black ice outside the Posada Abuela Fidela. Guests wake to frost feathering the windowpanes, then eat breakfast in a courtyard where central heating pipes clank like medieval armour. Summer visitors assume altitude equals coolness; July afternoons still reach 36 °C, but the low humidity makes shade tolerable and the stone houses exhale cold air after 21:00.

Getting There, Staying Put

No airport nearer than Madrid. From Terminal 4 it is 220 kilometres south on the A-4, fork right at Manzanares, and follow the A-43 until the sign appears: Villanueva de los Infantes 19 km. The last stretch is single-carriageway shared with tractors hauling hay bales. Trains run from Madrid Puerta de Atocha to Puertollano in 55 minutes; a taxi from there costs €60 unless you wait for the once-daily bus that deposits you beside the plaza at 15:10.

Accommodation is limited. Posada Abuela Fidela occupies a seventeenth-century house whose floorboards creak louder than the church bell; doubles start at €85 including garage parking, useful because public spaces fill during fiestas. Hotel Boutique La Morada de Juan de Vargas offers four-poster beds and a courtyard where swallows dive for moths; expect to pay €110 for a superior room with views over corrugated roofs and the wheat plain beyond. Las Violetas, five minutes out of town, has a pool that is open May to September and a bar that closes when the last guest goes to bed—sometimes after midnight, a rarity here.

When the Bells Ring Louder

Fiestas are religious first, folkloric second. Around 8 September the Virgen de la Antigua is carried in procession beneath a velvet canopy; brass bands play pasodobles, teenagers throw firecrackers, and the bars run a tab system based on trust and chalk marks. Semana Santa is quieter, the hooded penitents passing so close beneath the arcades that their candles scorch the timber beams. Temperatures can dip to 5 °C after dark; British visitors in T-shirts learn to borrow the brown blankets hung over restaurant chairs.

Literary weekends occur sporadically: academics deliver papers on whether Don Quixote was born here, actors recite Quevedo’s satires in the cloister, and the baker sells alfonsinos iced with the writer’s profile. These events are advertised only on a laminated poster inside the tourist office—open 10:00-14:00, closed Monday—and in the free monthly paper that locals use to wrap broccoli.

Last Orders

Villanueva de los Infantes does not dazzle; it persists. The monuments are handsome rather than spectacular, the surrounding landscape handsome rather than spectacular, the food handsome rather than spectacular. What lingers is the sense of a town that has remembered how to live with its past without turning it into merchandise. When the terrace lights go off at 23:30 and the plaza belongs once more to pigeons and the night watchman, you realise the greatest luxury here is silence—broken only by boots on stone and the occasional cork popping in a kitchen where tomorrow’s gachas are already soaking.