Esplegares

Thirty-one souls, one church, zero traffic lights. At 1,146 m above the Guadalajara plains, Esplegares is the last roof before the mesa drops into the Tagus basin. Mobile signal dies two kilometres short of the village; the asphalt thins to a single lane guarded by a stone cross weathered smooth by centuries of wind. Whatever you forgot in the city—latte art, contactless payment, small-talk—stays there.

The settlement sits on a limestone shelf that once fed whole provinces with wheat and sheep. Stone houses, the colour of dry bread, lean into the slope as if huddling against the weather. Rooflines sag, timber doors swell in winter, yet the walls stand a metre thick: cheap air-conditioning in July, armour against January nights that can touch –12 °C. Inside, hearths are still wide enough to roast a lamb whole, though most chimneys now puff only at weekends when owners drive up from Madrid.

What passes for a high street

There isn’t one. A five-minute stroll from the entrance sign to the cemetery covers the entire urban core. The parish church of San Pedro opens only for the 11 a.m. mass on alternate Sundays; the key hangs on a nail inside the sacristy, trusted to whoever arrives first. Next door, the former schoolhouse—closed since 1982—has blackboards still scrawled with chalk sums. Look through the cracked pane and you’ll see a map of Spain that ends at the Pyrenees, Franco-era borders intact.

The only commerce is a vending machine for bottled water parked beside the road, installed after the 2017 drought. It accepts euro coins and, curiously, British £1 pieces before the mint changed alloy. Locals call it “el Británico” and blame an Andalusian technician who once worked in Dover.

Walking the cereal sky

Esplegares guards a spider’s web of unsignposted tracks that link abandoned threshing circles to shepherd huts. Head east and the path drops 400 m to the abandoned hamlet of El Botardo, its church tower now a nesting site for griffon vultures. Walk west and you reach the cliff edge called El Buitre, where the land falls away in ochre layers towards the flooded plain of Entrepeñas reservoir, 25 km distant and shimmering like polished pewter.

Distances feel shorter at altitude; sound carries. A tractor starting in the valley below sounds as if it’s grumbling past your boots. Spring brings colour—crimson poppies stitched into green wheat—but the palette turns brutal by July: blond stubble, flint-blue sky, the occasional bruised cloud that yields nothing. Carry more water than you think sensible; the breeze is deceptive and the sole fountain in the village runs dry in August.

Night, unplugged

Street lighting consists of four sodium lamps that switch off at midnight to save the council €37 a month. What follows is blackout worthy of a national park. On moonless nights the Milky Way reflects off whitewashed walls well enough to read a map by. Shooting stars arrive every few minutes; satellites tick across the dome like slow meteors. The village keeps two battered deckchairs outside the church for this exact purpose—an informal observatory with zero entrance fee and a 100 % cloud refund policy.

Winter visitors get the inverse spectacle: snow falls dry and wind-whipped, piling into sculptural drifts against doorways. The access road is cleared sporadically—usually after the farmer finishes his own track—so carry chains from December to March. When blizzards seal the pass, Esplegares becomes an island reachable only on foot or by 4×4. Power cuts last hours, sometimes days. The upside is acoustic: snow muffles even the dogs, leaving a hush rare in modern Europe.

Eating, or not

Bring supplies. The nearest shop is 19 km away in Tamajón, a town whose bakery closes at 1 p.m. sharp and whose single supermarket shuts for siesta between 2 and 5. Pack picnic, or time your arrival around the monthly communal lunch held on the first Saturday after the 15th. For €8 you get a bowl of migas—fried breadcrumbs laced with garlic, grapes and pancetta—plus wine served in chipped ceramic cups. Dietary whims are pointless; the menu is whatever the mayor’s cousin decides to cook.

If you must eat out, Tamajón offers Asador La Alcarria, where roast baby goat (cordero lechal) costs €22 a quarter, and honey from the village’s own hives is sold in 500 g jars for €6. The honey carries a Denominación de Origen label; thyme and rosemary dominate the taste, a reminder that the hillside herbs survive on rainfall alone.

Getting here, and away

From Madrid, take the A-2 east to km 92, exit signposted “Alcolea del Pinar / Tamajón.” Switch to the CM-2106, a lane so empty you can park in the middle to photograph larks. After 45 minutes the tarmac narrows; ignore the sat-nav’s optimistic estimate of 15 km in “12 minutes.” Allow 90 minutes from the motorway. A normal car suffices except after heavy snow, when the final 6 km become a curling sheet. There is no petrol station for 40 km—fill up in Guadalajara.

Buses? Forget it. The last scheduled service was axed in 2013. Hitch-hiking works if you speak Spanish and don’t mind waiting beside almond groves. Better to share lifts through BlaBlaCar to Tamajón and walk the rest.

When to bother

May and June turn the plateau emerald; temperatures hover around 22 °C at midday, 8 °C at dawn. September repeats the trick with added grape harvest scent. July and August fry—expect 34 °C by 11 a.m.—but bring dramatic dusk storms that leave steam rising from the roads like dry ice. October light is golden, the grain stubble cropped short enough to reveal Neolithic terraces. November to March is for the self-sufficient: dazzling by day, glacial by night, occasionally unreachable.

The honest verdict

Esplegares will not change your life. You will not discover a secret tapas bar, nor stumble upon a celebrity yoga retreat. What you get is a vantage point onto a Europe that statisticians classify as “demographically challenged,” yet whose silence, altitude and raw seasonal swing still carry a charge. Come if you want to measure the day by shadow length rather than push-notification, and to learn how quickly 24 hours pass when the only distraction is a circling hawk. Pack tyre chains in winter, sunscreen in summer, and enough coins for the water machine—sterling will do.