El Valle de Altomira

The tractor idling outside the olive mill is the loudest thing for miles. At 08:30 on a Tuesday in May, the only other sound is the clank of a single cow bell somewhere beyond the wheat. El Valle de Altomira—really a scatter of farmsteads given a collective name—keeps the kind of quiet that makes British visitors check their phone reception twice. There isn’t any, not reliably. Put the screen away and the plateau starts to talk: hoopoes overhead, the mill’s stone wheel beginning to turn, Begoña greeting guests with a measured “Buenos días” that feels like the village speaking through her.

Oil, bread and what silence tastes like

Begoña and Carlos converted their grandfather’s press into Olivares de Altomira, the one attraction you will find on the English-language internet. Tours run three mornings a week for eight people maximum; WhatsApp bookings are essential (+34 686 688 426) because the electricity needed for the bottling line is the same circuit that powers their house—too many kettles and the fuse gives up. Visitors walk through the grove first: 600 arbequina trees planted in strict rows across a ridge at 850 m, high enough for frost to threaten until April. Inside, the mill smells of cut grass and pepper. Carlos feeds olives into the hammer mill, then tilts the paste onto fibre discs like cheese rounds. Forty minutes later golden threads fall from the centrifuge; Begoña pours it warm onto crusty baguettes and the group falls quiet, suddenly aware how rarely oil is tasted minutes after extraction.

The tasting class that follows is practical rather than poncey. You learn that the throat-catching burn is caused by oleocanthal, the same anti-inflammatory compound found in ibuprofen, and that fruity oil pairs better with British toast than with the strong Manchego everyone expects. A 250 ml bottle is slipped into each rucksack; UK customs allows five litres, so there is room for optimism. Payment is cash only—there isn’t a card machine within 18 km—and prices run from €9 for a half-litre to €28 for early-harvest “premium”. Monday visitors find the gates locked; the couple spend that day pruning or, in winter, delivering oil to restaurants in Cuenca who would otherwise cancel because the A-40 motorway is snow-slick.

Walking the cereal ocean

Leave the mill and the landscape reverts to wheat, barley and a scatter of holm oaks trained into unnatural umbrellas by centuries of grazing. The GR-160 long-distance footpath skirts the village, threading 12 km south-east to the ruins of Ermita de la Encarnación, a 16th-century chapel roofed now by vultures. The route is way-marked but faint; phone GPS drifts because the plateau confuses satellites, so an old-fashioned print from the Cuenca tourist office helps. Gradient is gentle—this is still La Mancha, not the nearby Iberian range—but the altitude means sun hits hard even in April. Carry more water than feels reasonable; the only fountain on the route, Fuente de la Orilla, is reliable after heavy rain and a mirage in August.

Spring brings colour that Cela never mentioned in Journey to the Alcarria: crimson poppies stitched through the wheat, bee-eaters flashing turquoise above the terraces. By July the palette has baked to gold and the walking shifts to dawn. Farmers regard strangers politely but distantly; say “Buenas” first and they will point out shortcuts. Afternoon brings thunderheads that look spectacular and drench the clay paths in minutes; the resulting sludge sticks to boots like cold porridge and makes the return trudge twice as long.

When the village fills up

August fiestas swell the demographic curve from 200 to roughly 900. The agricultural warehouse becomes a disco that pumps Spanish chart hits until 05:00; British second-home owners discover their stone cottages lack the insulation for sleep. Fireworks echo off the grain silos, and the village square hosts a communal paella for which you must bring your own spoon, bowl and chair. The priest processes the statue of the Assumption down CM-412 while tractors pause, engines idling, in precisely the spot where Carlos normally explains polyphenols to tourists. For three days the place feels almost busy—then Sunday ends, the cars tow wheeled cool-boxes back to Madrid, and silence drops back in like a theatre curtain.

Out of season the social hub is Bar California in neighbouring Santa María del Campo Rus, 7 km away. It opens at 07:00 for farm workers, serves coffee for €1.20 and plates of migas—fried breadcrumbs with garlic and grapes—at 11:00 sharp. They close whenever the owner drives to Cuenca for supplies, which can be Wednesday or Saturday; ring ahead if petrol is low. The nearest supermarket is in Belmonte, 20 minutes by car, where Casa Torrado will dish up gazpacho manchego (game stew on flatbread) without tripe if you ask politely. Vegetarians should order the pisto—ratatouille topped with a fried egg—or face an evening of bread and olives.

Getting here, and why you might turn back

Cuenca’s daily bus quits at the foot of the hill; from there a taxi costs €35 unless you reserved through the mill, in which case Carlos collects you for fuel money. Driving is simpler: take the A-40 from Madrid, exit at Tarancón, follow CM-412 past endless wheat until the sat-nav gives up. In winter the same road ices over; carry chains between December and March because the council salts only the industrial stretch near the wind-turbine depot. Patchy phone signal means Spotify buffers endlessly—download an offline playlist or embrace the wind-rush through the open windows.

Rain turns the final kilometre into a pothole slalom; hire cars return with wheel-arches the colour of digestive biscuits. Summer dust, on the other hand, seeps through air-conditioning vents and powders every surface inside the vehicle. Either way, bring wet wipes.

The honest verdict

El Valle de Altomira will not dazzle anyone seeking postcard Spain. There is no beach, no flamenco tablao, no Moorish castle crowning a crag. What exists is a working patch of upland whose rhythms still obey the harvest, the bell and the weather front rolling in from the Cuenca hills. Come for the olive oil if you enjoy process more than spectacle; stay for the walking if you are content with horizons rather than monuments. The village rewards patience and penalises impatience: arrive with a full tank, an offline map and no fixed timetable, and the plateau opens like a slow-moving book. Arrive hungry on a Monday expecting lunch and you will drive another 40 minutes before finding so much as a sandwich. Either outcome feels appropriate—this is still Spain, but the version that never read the tourism brochures.