Irueste

The only evening entertainment is the sky. At 780 m on the Alcarria plateau, Irueste’s streetlights are so scarce that the Milky Way appears as a dense smear above the slate roofs. Silence is absolute: no bar chatter, no passing traffic, just the occasional clank of a water pump and, if wind direction is right, the bells of the village church striking the hour for 63 residents.

Irueste sits 50 km south-east of Guadalajara, reached by a single-track lane that narrows to a sheep-width in places. The road ends here; beyond lie only cereal fields and the gorge of the River Tajuña. Most visitors arrive with the tank half full and the boot half empty—there is no shop, no pump, no cash machine, and the last public bus left in 1998. What the village does offer is a clean break from the British weekend rhythm of queues, notifications and £6 lattes.

Stone houses, most shuttered since their owners moved to Madrid decades ago, form a loose knot around the 16th-century parish church. The building is open only for Saturday-evening mass; step inside earlier and you’ll find the door ajar but the nave in semi-darkness, the air thick with wax and cold stone. No ticket desk, no audio guide—just a notice board listing the names of farmers who donated wheat for the 1977 roof repair.

Walk ten minutes in any direction and the settlement dissolves into farmland. Pathways follow the old drove roads that once took sheep to winter pastures in Extremadura; today they serve weekend hikers tracing the 8 km “Ruta de la Mora Encantada”. The loop threads along the river gorge, past abandoned watermills and stands of ash that turn butter-yellow in October. Signposts exist, but only just—download an offline map before leaving the UK and carry at least a litre of water per person; shade is minimal and midsummer temperatures touch 38 °C.

Bird life rewards the early start. Short-toed eagles ride the thermals above the gorge, and spectacled warblers rustle in the juniper scrub. Binoculars are more use here than a phrase book; the handful of remaining villagers speak a soft Castilian and will happily direct lost walkers, though directions are delivered in kilometres, not time. “Three fields and you’ll see the ruin” is the local version of GPS.

Base yourself at El Molino de la Mora Encantada, a converted water-mill two kilometres downstream. The eight-room house is the nearest thing Irueste has to commerce: dinner is served at a single long table, and the set menu (€18) runs to garlic chicken, local beans and a baked cheesecake that regularly appears on British guests’ Instagram feeds. Vegetarians need to warn the owners the day before; otherwise everything arrives with a slab of jamón hidden somewhere. Wi-Fi is adequate for email but struggles with Zoom—tell the office you’ll be unavailable and mean it.

Spring and autumn give the best walking weather. April brings wild tulips and the first bee-eaters; October paints the cereal stubble bronze and drops the night temperature to a fleece-worthy 8 °C. July and August are furnace-hot; walkers set out at dawn and retreat to the mill’s plunge pool by eleven. Winter is quietest of all—snow is rare but night frosts harden the mud, and the road from Guadalajara can be treacherous after rain. If you book between December and February, ask for a room with the wood-burning stove; central heating is still considered a novelty.

Excursions beyond the village require wheels. The fortified town of Pastrana, 25 minutes north, has a proper Saturday market and a plaza where you can sit outdoors with a cortado and remember what traffic sounds like. Sigüenza, 35 minutes west, provides a cathedral, a hill-top castle-parador and a couple of restaurants that understand vegetarian paella. Both towns sell the local Alcarria honey—mild, almost citrusy—stocked by Fortnum & Mason under a fancier label at three times the price.

Back in Irueste, the calendar is governed by saints and harvests. The fiesta patronal falls on the last weekend of August, when emigrants return, a sound system appears in the square and the population quadruples overnight. Visitors are welcome but beds are impossible unless booked six months ahead; day-trippers can join the street dancing at midnight and still be back in Guadalajara for a 2 a.m. nightcap. The only other date that matters is 1 November, when families gather to sweep ancestors’ graves and the bakery in neighbouring Tortuero sells out of sugared “huesos de santo” by ten in the morning.

Practicalities are blunt. Fill the hire car in Guadalajara and buy groceries there—the nearest supermarket is a Mercadona on the city ring road. Mobile coverage favours Vodafone; O2 users often achieve one bar only by standing on the church step. Bring insect repellent in June: the stream below the mill breeds tiny flies whose bite raises itchy welts. Finally, remember that total escape cuts both ways. If the peace becomes unnerving, the motorway home is an hour away—but you may find the M40’s roar louder than you ever noticed before.