Hueva

The church bell in Hueva strikes seven and the village loudspeaker crackles to life. A voice reads yesterday’s death notices, the grain prices, and the fact that the grocer won’t open until ten. Nothing else disturbs the wind moving across cereal stubble at 877 metres. For visitors schlepping from Stansted to Madrid and then east on the A-2, this is the first lesson: time here is still organised by humans, not push notifications.

A Horizontal Landscape, a Vertical Bell Tower

Hueva sits on a mild rise in the heart of La Alcarria, a high plateau that feels more horizon than land. Stand on the cement bench outside the village cemetery and you can watch weather systems travel for miles before they arrive. The stone houses—two storeys, wooden balconies, the occasional iron grille—cluster round a single landmark: the parish church whose squat tower leans two degrees off centre. Camilo José Cela noted the tilt in his 1946 travelogue Journey to the Alcarria, and British visitors still photograph it as proof they’ve found the “real” Spain. Real it is; glamorous it isn’t. Many façades need repointing, and the Friday-afternoon smell is fertiliser, not orange blossom.

That honesty is part of the appeal. Hueva never courted tourism, so it never built it. The census hovers just below one hundred, swollen in August by grandchildren shipped out from Guadalajara and Madrid. The rest of the year you share the streets with one resident dog, two tractors and a pensioner who greets strangers with “¿Inglés? Hay que comer bien” before pointing you towards the only bar.

What You’ll Actually Do (and Why It’s Enough)

Sightseeing takes forty minutes: loop from the church to the stone wash-house, past the 1920s school boarded up since the last teacher retired, then back via the ermita whose door is locked but whose porch offers shade and a stone bench perfect for removing burrs. After that the entertainment is foot-based. Farm tracks radiate into cereal fields, following drystone walls and the occasional irrigation ditch. Distances look shorter than they are; the plain plays visual tricks. Carry more water than you think sensible—shade is a polite suggestion rather than a fact—and start early. By eleven the sun is already practising for its midday audition.

Cyclists find the same deceptive openness. The CM-210 to Pastrana is smooth but rises and falls like a gentle roller-coaster; the cross-wind, funnelling between the plateau and the Tajo valley, can turn an easy 20-kilometre spin into interval training. Drivers on these lanes wave; it’s habit, not hospitality. Wave back. Petrolheads in hire cars should note: the nearest fuel is fifteen minutes away in Cifuentes, and the village pump closed when the EU tightened safety rules in 2004.

Eating (and Stocking Up) Like a Local

Hunger is solved at Bar La Plaza, open 08:00–16:00 and 20:00–22:00 unless María’s grandchildren have a football match. The menu is chalked on a blackboard that hasn’t changed in years: migas—fried breadcrumbs with garlic and pancetta—slow-cooked lentils, and a half-chicken roasted until the skin shatters. A plate costs €9–12; cash only, and you’ll need to ask for the bill because it won’t arrive otherwise. Beer comes in cañas (200 ml) or dobles; wine is from Uclés, fruity, unoaked, and slips down like Ribena at a sixth-form party.

Self-caterers should shop before arrival. The village grocer, open 09:00–14:00 on weekdays, stocks UHT milk, tinned tuna and locally jarred honey that still contains the occasional bee leg. Anything fancier—fresh basil, oat milk, gin—requires a 15-minute drive to the Consum in Pastrana. Sunday lunch out? Book by Thursday or the oven stays cold.

For a blow-out dinner, El Horno de Leopoldo has converted an old bread oven into a six-table restaurant. British families praise the private splash-pool attached to two upstairs rooms; couples like the tasting menu (request the English translation when you reserve). Expect baby squid with garlic, lamb shoulder that collapses at the sight of a fork, and a honey parfait made with La Alcarria’s protected-origin nectar. Three courses with house wine run €35 per head; book a taxi if you’ve been generous with the carafe because the Guardia Civil patrol the CM-200 most Saturday nights.

When to Come, When to Stay Away

May and mid-September deliver 24 °C days, 12 °C nights and skies wiped clean by altitude. Wild marjoram scents the paths, harriers circle over stubble, and you can walk without becoming a human sweat patch. June turns up the heat but remains manageable; July and August bake. Thermometers touch 38 °C and the plateau wind feels like someone pointing a hair-dryer at your face. Accommodation without air-conditioning is cheap for a reason: nighttime lows of 24 °C test matrimonial harmony. Winter is crisp—daytime 8 °C, nights below zero—and the silence deepens further. Snow is rare but frost glitters on stone walls, and the wood-smoke smell is better than any scented candle Borough Market ever sold you.

The village fiestas (14–16 September) mark the grape harvest and the local saint. Temporary fairground rides occupy the football pitch, churros fry at midnight, and the population quadruples. It’s fun if you like community karaoke; it’s hell if you came for absolute quiet. August’s bank-holiday weekend is similarly busy with returning families, but most visitors clear out by Sunday evening and the lanes regain their vacuum hush.

The Practical Litany

Fly to Madrid, collect a hire car, head east on the A-2, peel off at km 62 onto the CM-210. The last seven kilometres narrow to single-track with passing bays; you will meet a tractor, you will reverse. There is no bus, no train, and a taxi from Guadalajara costs €120 return. Petrol stations accept UK cards; village bars often don’t, so draw cash in Pastrana. Mobile signal is three bars of 4G on Vodafone, one on EE, zero inside stone cottages—download offline maps before you set off.

Bring decent walking shoes, a sun-hat with a brim wide enough to embarrass teenagers, and a light fleece for after dark. The nearest hospital is half an hour away in Guadalajara; the village pharmacy opens two mornings a week. Travel insurance that actually covers rural Spain is cheaper than an air-ambulance debate with your provider.

Leaving Without a Souvenir (and Why That’s Fine)

Hueva won’t sell you a fridge magnet. The honey is transportable, the cheese needs a cool box, and the landscape you remember belongs to everyone and no one. What you take away is subtler: the realisation that somewhere in Europe still times its day to a bell, still counts its dead aloud, and still measures distance in the grunt of a tractor rather than the ping of an app. Drive back to the airport, merge onto the M40, and within an hour the horizon shrinks to tail-lights. The plateau wind stays behind, combing through wheat stubble, waiting for the next curious traveller to step out of the car and wonder why the silence sounds so loud.