Los Valdecolmenas

The thermometer on the car dashboard drops a degree every kilometre once you leave the baking floor of the Meseta and swing onto the CM-210. By the time the road crests the last ridge, Los Valdecolmenas appears at 930 m, a tight cluster of stone roofs caught between cereal steppes and a sky that looks bigger than the land. At this height, even in late May, the wind carries enough bite to make you reach for a fleece—something that rarely happens 35 km away in Cuenca.

Seventy-four residents are registered, though you would be hard-pressed to meet half of them. Many houses stay shuttered until the village’s population doubles in August, when former neighbours drive down from Madrid or Valencia for the fiesta de regreso. The rest of the year, silence is the default soundtrack, broken only by tractors, the clank of a distant sheep bell and, around sunset, the soft whistle of red kites riding the thermals overhead.

A church that keeps its own hours

Iglesia de San Andrés Apóstol stands square in the middle of the single main street, its rough-cast tower visible for miles across the plateau. The building is fifteenth-century at its core, patched so often that the stone looks quilted. Inside, the nave is cool and plain: no gilded retablo, just a simple timber roof, a few painted benches and a single crucifix. Whether the heavy wooden doors are open depends on whether Andrés—the sacristan who doubles as the mayor’s cousin—is around. Turn up at random and you may find them locked; arrive ten minutes after the 11 a.m. Sunday mass and you will catch him sweeping the porch, happy to show visitors the tiny choir loft. There is no ticket office, no donation box, only the expectation that you close the door quietly on your way out.

Walls thick enough for winter

Farmers built here for continental extremes: summers that bake the clay to brick, winters that send the mercury to –12 °C. Houses are therefore low, almost sunken, with metre-thick masonry and few external windows. The living quarters open inward to corralled yards where chickens, pigs and people once shared the same patch of sun. Several façades still display timber balconies, painted the traditional ox-blood red, though many are now purely decorative—inside, the old lofts have been converted into sitting rooms for weekend owners. One crumbling dwelling on Calle de la Fuente has been left deliberately unrestored; its collapsing roof truss gives the lie to any romantic notion of rustic idylls.

Walk the lanes for twenty minutes and you have seen the lot. That is not a criticism; the pleasure lies in the details: the scent of crushed thyme underfoot, the way swallows stitch flight paths between the eaves, the sudden flush of poppies against grey stone. Photographers tend to linger by the threshing floors south of the village where, at dusk, the plain turns lamplit gold and the sky graduates through every shade of bruise.

Trails without signposts

Los Valdecolmenas makes no claim to be a hiking destination, yet it sits on a lattice of agricultural tracks that web the high Alcarria. Head east on the dirt road signed simply “Ermita” and you drop gently into the Río Gritos valley, meeting no one except the occasional shepherd on a moped. The route is only 7 km out and back, but at 900 m you feel the altitude in your lungs. Spring brings a haze of fresh wheat; by July the same fields are stubble and dust. There are no waymarks, so download the IGN 1:25,000 map or ask in the village—Paco, who keeps the little grocery, enjoys tracing routes with a biro on the back of a bread bag.

Serious walkers can link to the GR-160 long-distance path near Huerta de la Obispalía, 12 km north, but remember that shade is non-existent and water sources are locked gates. Carry more liquid than you think necessary; the dry air deceives.

Food arrives by car

The village shop opens 9–11 a.m., sells tinned beans, UHT milk and locally jarred honey labelled Miel de La Alcarria DOP. That is the extent of retail. For a meal you need wheels. Huete, 15 km away, has two decent options: Mesón Casa Ramón does a fixed-price menú del día for €14 (£12) featuring cordero al horno—salt-crusted shoulder of lamb that flakes onto your plate in juicy shards. If you prefer a table with tablecloth, Hotel Alfonso VIII in the same town grills excellent chanfaina sausages and pours chilled la Mancha white despite the upland chill.

Picnickers should stock up in Cuenca before the climb; the only bar in Los Valdecolmenas closed in 2019 and the nearest cash machine is 25 km distant in Tarancón.

When the village wakes up

The feast of Saint Andrew on 30 November is the one date the hamlet commits to noise. Former residents squeeze parked cars along the main street, a marquee goes up beside the church, and an orquesta that has played the same set list since 1985 belts out pasodobles until the small hours. The highlight is the matanza communal: at dawn volunteers slaughter two pigs, then spend the day turning every gram into morcilla, chorizo and manteca coloured with pimentón. Visitors are welcome to watch; if you are offered a slice of fresh morcilla fried with garlic, accept—it bears no relation to supermarket black pudding.

Summer brings a gentler programme: an outdoor film night in July, a paella contest in August. Both start late because temperatures can hover at 34 °C until the sun drops behind the Sierra at 9.30 p.m. Bring a cushion; plastic chairs run out fast.

Getting there—and away again

Public transport does not reach Los Valdecolmenas. From Madrid, take the AVE to Cuenca (1 hr 10 min, around £25 each way if booked ahead), then collect a hire car. The final 35 km twist through wheat terraces and sudden limestone outcrops; allow 45 minutes because grain lorries hog the centre line. In winter, the CM-210 is routinely gritted, but after snow showers the last incline can turn white—carry chains December–February.

Fill the petrol tank in Cuenca; the village has no fuel, and the solitary pump in Huete closes at 8 p.m. Mobile coverage is patchy inside the houses, though 4G pops up on the surrounding tracks if you need to check weather—worth doing, because storms can roll across the plateau with spectacular speed.

The honest verdict

Los Valdecolmenas will never feature on a coach tour. It offers no souvenir shops, no boutique hotel, not even a café terrace for a sundowner. What it does give is a sharp sense of how fragile Spain’s interior has become: a place where swifts outnumber people, where the church key still hangs on a nail beside the door, where the land dictates the timetable. Come for a night—two at most—and you will leave with dust on your shoes, the smell of thyme in your jacket, and a clearer understanding of what “empty Spain” actually feels like. Just remember to bring everything you need; after dark, the only thing open is the sky.