Fuentelviejo

The first thing you notice is the hush. Step out of the car on Fuentelviejo’s single stone square and the engine tick fades faster than you can lock the doors. At 950 m on the Sierra de Altomira the air is thin, dry and carries almost nothing—no music, no scooters, not even a dog. The village’s name means “old spring” and you realise the soundtrack is water, murmuring somewhere beneath the houses.

Roughly fifty people live here year-round. They keep the keys to the 18th-century stone church, refill the public fountain that gives the place its name, and still harvest wheat on terraces clawed from the slope. Everyone else arrives in August, when the population quadruples for the fiestas, or in Easter week when Madrilenyo families unlock their grandparents’ houses and the bakery in the next village fires its oven an extra hour.

The pleasures of doing very little

There is no ticket office, no interpretative centre, no gift shop. Guidebooks barely mention Fuentelviejo; even the regional tourist board lists it as “other localities”. What you get instead is a ready-made slow day: wander the two cobbled lanes, count the stork nests on the cornice of the parish church, then follow the stone channel that carries snow-melt from the spring to tiny vegetable plots. The water is potable; fill a bottle and it tastes of iron and thyme.

Walk ten minutes uphill past threshing circles cut into the rock and the village shrinks to a red-tile smudge among holm oaks. From the ridge you can see the Tagus valley shimmer 40 km away and, on clear April mornings, the skyscrapers of Madrid catching light like pins on blue velvet. The round trip to the ruined mountain refuge of Cueva del Santo takes two hours, requires no specialist kit, and you’ll meet more griffon vultures than humans.

Cyclists use the place as a cheap bed for the night: the CM-1017 that links the village to the Guadalajara road is a favourite training climb for Madrid clubs. Gradient touches 10 % in places but there’s so little traffic that sheep stare when a car passes.

A house big enough for the whole tribe

Accommodation is limited to three privately owned casas rurales, the largest of which—Casa Rural El Empecinado—swallows fourteen people for about €180 a night. British groups discovered it during the pandemic and now block-book in May and late September. Reviews on UK sites praise the thick granite walls that keep bedrooms at 20 °C even when the courtyard hits 36 °C, and the fact every bedroom has its own bath—no queue for the shower after a dusty walk.

Booking includes firewood but not breakfast; the nearest supermarket is 18 km away in Tamajón, so most visitors stop at a Mercadona beside Madrid airport on the drive up. The colmado in Fuentelviejo opens two mornings a week and stocks tinned beans, tinned tuna, tinned artichokes—fine if you forgot olive oil, hopeless for fresh milk.

What passes for nightlife

Evenings revolve around the square’s single streetlamp. Bring a bottle of tinto de verano and the village’s two permanent bachelors will appear with fold-up chairs to practise English learned in the 1962 mining season. Topics range from rainfall statistics to why British footballers fall over so easily. By 22:30 the lamp times out and conversation ends in darkness broken only by cigarette tips and, in August, a few fireflies.

If you need a bar stool and a printed menu, drive 12 km to Tortuera. Bar Deportivo grills chuletón al estilo de Guadalajara—beef chop the size of a laptop, served rare for two to share at €32. Locals eat at 21:00 sharp; arrive later and the grill is scrubbed clean.

Seasons that decide for you

Winter is not a secret bargain. Night temperatures drop to –5 °C, pipes freeze, and the rural house owners shut up shop between December and February. Spring, though, is when Castilla-La Mancha smells like a brewery: wild thyme, rosemary and budding cereal release a warm yeasty scent that drifts for miles. Walking conditions are perfect from late March to mid-May; daytimes 18 °C, nights cool enough for a jumper, and the stone walls echo with bee-eaters just back from Africa.

Autumn brings mushroom foragers from Madrid at weekends. They park Land Cruisers on the square, brandish wicker baskets and argue over whether the grey-capped níscalos they just found are legally sized. Stay mid-week and you still have the woods to yourself; the church caretaker will lend you a stick and point toward the pine scrub where milk-caps flush after October rain.

Summer is hot, frequently 38 °C by 15:00. The village water still runs—one advantage of living on a limestone aquifer—but shade is scarce. British families treat the place as a reading retreat, closing shutters after breakfast and re-emerging at 18:00 to swim in the nearby reservoir of Beleña, a fifteen-minute drive along a dirt track that feels like the surface of Mars.

Getting here without the headache

Madrid-Barajas is the only Spanish airport within sane reach. From Terminal 1 the A-2 heads north-east; after 45 minutes you peel off at km 82, swap the motorway for the CM-1017 mountain road and climb 400 m in fifteen switchbacks. Car essential—there is no daily bus, and a taxi from Guadalajara costs €40 and must be booked a day ahead. In winter carry chains; the final ramp faces north and ices over.

Petrol is cheaper at the airport rental return than in the provinces; fill up before you leave the motorway. Mobile coverage is 4G on the square but drops to nothing in the valley behind the church—download offline maps before setting off on walks.

Parting reality check

Fuentelviejo will not change your life. You will not find flamenco, Moorish palaces or a Michelin star. You might, however, remember how to tell time by light and temperature, and discover that an evening can feel complete without checking your phone. Bring groceries, sturdy shoes and a sense that silence is something worth travelling for. If that sounds like hard work, Madrid’s bright lights are only an hour away—though once the village fountain starts its night-time chatter, the motorway seems to belong to a different century.