Olmedilla de Eliz

The Village That Forgot to Grow

Seventeen residents. That's fewer people than you'll find in a single carriage of the 07:45 to Paddington. Yet Olmedilla de Eliz persists at 870 metres above sea level, its stone houses clinging to a ridge in La Alcarria like barnacles on an ancient hull. The altitude matters here – it means winter mornings sharp enough to make your ears ache, and summer evenings when the temperature drops ten degrees as soon as the sun slips behind the quejigo oaks.

Drive up from Cuenca and you'll notice the change before you arrive. The air thins. The cereal fields stretch further. Mobile signal wavers, then gives up entirely. By the time you reach the village's single street, even the wind sounds different – not the muffled urban sort that bounces off buildings, but a proper plateau wind that has gathered speed across empty kilometres of wheat and barley.

What Passes for a Centre

There isn't one, not really. The church stands where it always has, its limestone walls the colour of weathered bone, but you'll find no plaza mayor lined with cafés. Instead, houses cluster tight against each other as if for warmth, their wooden doors painted colours that once might have been vibrant – cobalt, ochre, terracotta – now faded to suggestions of pigment.

Walk the length of the village in ten minutes. That's not hyperbole; timing it takes longer than doing it. The stone underfoot has been polished smooth by centuries of boots and hooves. Look up and you'll see the architectural equivalent of archaeological layers: Roman foundations, medieval walls, twentieth-century concrete patches where someone needed a quick fix and had neither the money nor the inclination to source matching stone.

The Silence Business

Olmedilla doesn't do attractions. What it sells – though nobody would be so crass as to actually sell it – is absence. No traffic. No queues. No piped music. The loudest sounds are agricultural: a tractor starting up somewhere in the distance, sheep bells clonking against each other, the mechanical click of a stork's bill if you're lucky enough to spot one on the church tower.

This makes it catnip for British walkers seeking proper solitude. The PR-CU 54 trail heads south from the village, following an old drove road that once connected Eliz with settlements long since abandoned. After forty minutes you'll reach a stone corral where shepherds still gather flocks – look for the circular wall with a single narrow entrance designed to funnel sheep through for counting. Keep walking and you'll hit the Arroyo de la Dehesa, usually dry but after rain forming pools where ibex come to drink.

Food Without the Faff

Here's the thing: Olmedilla itself has no restaurants, no bars, no shops. Nothing. Nada. This isn't a quaint oversight – it's reality for a village where permanent residents could fit in a minibus. The nearest proper meal is a twelve-minute drive to El Provencio, where Casa Juan serves morteruelo (a pâté-like spread that's basically Spain's answer to Brussels pâté) and gazpacho manchego that bears no relation to the chilled soup you know. This is game stew with flatbread, properly hearty stuff that makes sense when you understand that winter here hits minus eight.

Self-catering works better. Book one of the three holiday houses that rent out week-by-week – Casa del Pájaro is the pick, with its walled garden and small pool that catches the afternoon sun. Shop in Motilla del Palancar before you arrive: the supermarket there stocks decent Manchego curado for €18 a kilo, and they'll slice it properly thin. Bring cash – Olmedilla has no ATM, and the nearest is a 25-kilometre round trip you'll regret not making.

Seasons That Actually Matter

Spring arrives late at this altitude. April can still bring frost, but by May the wild thyme releases its scent when you walk, and the steppe flowers create a brief, almost shocking carpet of colour. This is when birders visit – you'll spot great bustards performing their clumsy mating dances in the fields below the village, and if you're patient, little bustards too, though they're proper skulking birds that require binoculars and patience.

Autumn might be better. September brings golden light that makes the stone glow, and the temperature settles into that sweet spot where walking doesn't involve sweating through your shirt. October sees the quejigos turn proper copper, and the harvested fields reveal their contours – you can read the landscape's bones in a way that summer's vegetation hides.

Winter? Only if you're hardy. The road up can ice over, and when it does you're stuck until it thaws. But on clear January days the air carries that sharp, clean quality that makes everything look hyper-real, and you'll have the place entirely to yourself.

The Booking Reality Check

Three houses. That's your lot for accommodation. During Spanish school holidays – particularly the week either side of August 15th – they book solid with families from Madrid seeking proper dark skies for their kids. Prices jump from €90 to €140 per night for a two-bedroom place. Outside those weeks you'll have options, but don't assume you can just turn up. The village has no hotel, no pension, no sympathetic farmer with a spare room.

Ditto for dinner if you venture out. The three restaurants in El Provencio take bookings seriously – turn up without reserving and you'll drive home hungry. Bar Elíz in neighbouring El Herrumblar closes at 11pm sharp, weekend or not, and they'll shrug if you arrive at 11:05. This isn't rudeness; it's simply how things work when your customer base is measured in dozens, not hundreds.

Getting Lost Properly

You'll need a car. Public transport involves a bus to El Herrumblar followed by a 25-kilometre taxi ride that costs more than hiring a vehicle for the day. From Madrid's Barajas terminal, take the A-3 southeast, then the A-40 towards Cuenca. After Tarancón, the roads shrink to single carriageways where you'll crawl behind agricultural machinery. Download offline maps – 4G disappears in the valleys, and asking directions involves finding someone to ask first.

The journey takes exactly as long as it should. No motorways slice through these hills, no high-speed rail links the villages. You'll arrive when you arrive, and the village will be there, exactly as it was, exactly as it will be, held in place by altitude and isolation and the stubborn refusal of seventeen people to live anywhere else.