Moratilla de los Meleros

The evening bus from Guadalajara wheezes to a halt beside a stone trough. One passenger steps off, two locals climb on. The driver kills the engine. At 865 metres above sea level, the silence that follows is so complete you can hear a dog scratching itself two streets away. This is Moratilla de los Meleros, population 107, a village that remembers when its men earned their living shinning down cliffs to rob wild bees.

Stone, Wind and the Smell of Thyme

Forget the postcard Spain of orange trees and flamenco. The Alcarria plateau is high, dry and wind-scoured. The houses here are low, built from ochre stone that turns honey-coloured at sunset. Doors are painted the same ox-blood red you see across Castilla-La Mancha, a tradition started when farmers mixed pig's blood into the paint to harden it against the weather. Most still close with a wrought-iron latch that clicks like a gunshot when it shuts.

Streets follow the slope rather than any plan. Walk uphill from the trough and you reach the plaza, a triangle of cracked concrete with a single fig tree and a bench occupied, nine times out of ten, by the same three men in flat caps. They will nod, but conversation is optional. The village is not rude; it simply assumes you have come for the same thing they stay for – space to hear yourself think.

The parish church anchors the upper edge. It is no bigger than an English village hall, its bell tower more functional than graceful. Push the door at dusk and the interior smells of candle wax and grain dust; farmers still store seed in the sacristy because the walls are two metres thick and keep mice out. Look for the faint fresco of San Isidro above the side altar: painted in 1923, it shows the ploughing saint with a team of oxen that have the heavy, square heads still bred locally.

Walking the Old Honey Trails

Leave the village by the track signed "Cifuentes 9 km" and you are following the same paths the meleros used three centuries ago. They headed for the barrancos – deep gullies cut by winter torrents – where wild bees nested in the sandstone. The trade died out when bee-boxes arrived, but the scrub is still loud with bees in May when the thyme flowers. The plant grows so thick its oil slicks your boots and the air tastes faintly of cough sweets.

Distances deceive. The map shows gentle contour lines; your thighs tell a different story. A circular walk to the abandoned hamlet of Valdeminguete and back takes three hours, crosses three ridges and offers precisely zero shade. Take two litres of water per person between April and October; the only tap is back in the plaza. Mobile reception vanishes after the first crest – download offline maps before you set off.

What you get in return is the Spain interior without filter: wheat turning from green to gold in June, crested larks flinging their song into the empty sky, and every so often a stone hut whose roof collapsed decades ago. Locals call them chozos; shepherds slept in them during the transhumance. Peer inside and you may still find a rusted tin that once held cola-cao, the Spanish answer to Nesquik.

Nightfall at Altitude

By nine o’clock the village lamps blink on, triggered by a single photocell on the church roof. The temperature drops ten degrees in half an hour; even in July you will want a jumper. Walk fifty paces beyond the last streetlight, tilt your head back and the Milky Way appears like a smear of chalk on black paper. Light pollution is measurable in lux levels lower than anywhere south of the Cairngorms. Amateur astronomers bring tripods and swear the seeing rivals Arizona; the only interruption is the occasional thud of a melon falling from a rooftop garden – gardeners up here grow them in old tractor tyres to keep them off the cold ground.

There is no bar, no restaurant, no Sunday-morning baker. The sole shop doubles as the baker’s van stop on Tuesday and Friday; if you miss the 11:30 horn blast you go without crusty bread until the next delivery. Plan accordingly. The nearest proper meal is in Cifuentes, nine kilometres away, where Mesón de la Alcarria serves cordero al horno (lamb roasted in a wood oven) for €14 a portion. Ring ahead; they only light the oven if six customers are coming.

When the Village Wakes Up

August turns the calendar upside-down. Former residents return from Madrid and Valencia, inflatable castles appear in the plaza, and the population swells to maybe four hundred. The fiesta programme is printed on a single A4 sheet taped to the church door: brass band on Thursday, paella for fifty on Friday, mass followed by chocolate and churros on Sunday morning. Outsiders are welcome but not fussed over; buy a raffle ticket for the ham and you are accepted.

The rest of the year rhythm comes from the land. In April tractors drag seed drills that look Victorian; October brings queues of lorries weighing grain at the cooperative. You can tell the day of week by the direction of the wind: westerly carries the smell of fertiliser from the plains, easterly brings pine from the Cuenca hills. It is a calendar anyone over sixty can read like a wristwatch.

Stay the night and you will hear dogs barking at foxes, the slow clop of a donkey being led to water, occasionally a car stereo as someone returns from the late shift in Guadalajara. By midnight even the dogs give up. The silence is not poetic; it is simply what happens when there are not enough people to make noise.

Getting There, Staying Sane

From London, fly to Madrid, then take the AVE train to Guadalajara (28 minutes, about £25 if booked early). From Guadalajara bus station, Mon–Fri service at 16:30, returning 07:00 next day; weekend buses are sparser. A taxi from Guadalajara costs around €60 – pool with other travellers at the rank if you can. The road is good until the last 12 km, when it narrows to single-track with passing bays; meet a combine harvester and someone has to reverse.

Accommodation is limited to Hostal La Plaza: six rooms above the village’s only bar (open when the owner feels like it). Beds are firm, hot water reliable, Wi-Fi theoretical. Price hovers around €30 a night including toast and instant coffee downstairs. Anything grander means backtracking to Cifuentes or Sigüenza.

Come with cash; the nearest ATM is 18 km away and the hostal does not take cards. Bring sunscreen and a fleece in the same day-pack – the plateau can be 25 °C at noon and 8 °C by dawn. Most of all, come with time. Moratilla de los Meleros does not reveal itself in an hour. It yields its stories slowly, the way honey drips from a spoon that has known the cold.