Pioz

The church bells ring at 856 metres above sea level, their clang carried sideways by a wind that never quite stops across the Alcarrian plateau. From the steps of the sixteenth-century Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción the view is almost mathematical: wheat rectangles, olive grids, the occasional cluster of stone houses hunkered low against the gusts. This is Pioz, a Castilian village whose altitude matters more than its monuments; come here for air that tastes of thyme and dust rather than headline attractions.

A Plateau That Changes Its Mind

Summer arrives late and leaves early. July mornings can touch 32 °C, yet by 10 pm the thermometer has tumbled to 16 °C—British visitors instinctively reach for the cardigan they packed “just in case.” In January the same streets glaze with a thin white frost; the 876-metre height turns every shower sleety and every car park into an ice rink. The village grows by roughly a thousand souls in August, when Madrilenian families swap city flats for grandparents’ houses, but even then Pioz never feels crowded. Outside fiesta weeks you’ll share the main square with three retired men, two bored dogs and a delivery van selling bread from a loudspeaker.

Walking shoes matter more than sandals. Several farm tracks strike south toward the dried-up Cañamares stream; none are strenuous, but all involve ankle-high grass and the occasional loose flint. A four-kilometre loop leaves from the cement works on the eastern edge, crosses three fields of saffron thistle, then cuts back along an irrigation ditch now used mainly by rabbits. Spring is the payoff: the plateau greens briefly in April, and the air fills with small white butterflies that seem to follow walkers like confetti. By late June the colour has drained back to ochre; autumn compensates with gold light and the smell of burnt stubble.

What Passes for a Centre

Pioz has no postcard Old Town, just a gradual fade from nineteenth-century adobe to twenty-first-century brick. The ayuntamiento occupies a 1970s block whose ground-floor windows still carry metal grilles painted municipal green. Opposite, the Plaza Mayor functions as outdoor living-room: mothers push buggies in circles, teenagers practise scooter tricks, and the bar owner at Cafetería María wheels his coffee machine onto the pavement so he can keep an eye on both customers and football scores. Order a café con leche (€1.40) and you’ll usually receive a free miniature doughnut; it’s not policy, simply habit.

The church keeps eccentric hours. Mass is sung at 11:30 on Sundays, but the building unlocks only ten minutes beforehand because, the sacristan admits, “otherwise the swallows nest in the confessionals.” Inside, the single nave mixes plateresque carving with 1970s pine pews and a plaster Christ whose paint flakes like sunburnt skin. Climb the narrow spiral—ask at the bakery opposite for the key, €2 donation suggested—and the roof offers a 360-degree lesson in Castilian geography: wind turbines on the northern ridge, the faint blue line of the Cifuentes hills forty kilometres west, and everywhere else an endless chessboard of cereal plots.

Eating on Alcarrian Time

Kitchens open when they open, rarely before 21:00. Bar Juan Luis, halfway along Calle Real, is the exception; it serves platos combinados from 13:00 to 15:30 and again from 20:00. The €10 menú del día—today perhaps roast chicken with chips, tomorrow fried hake in gloomy yellow batter—will not win Michelin stars but keeps lorry drivers loyal. Locals recommend the migas at El Tinder’s, a windowless tavern whose owner claims his recipe needs exactly 40 % country bread, 40 % chorizo fat and 20 % “whatever the wind brings.” The result is salty, crunchy and unexpectedly moreish; order a media ración (€6) unless you’ve spent the morning hauling wheat sacks.

Serious honey hunters head to Panadería la Alcarria, two doors from the church. The family keeps hives on the edge of the village and sells 500 g jars for €5.80—mild, slightly thick, perfect for smuggling through Heathrow in a rolled-up sock. If you’re self-catering, the Wednesday market (09:00–13:00) supplies rock-hard peaches, rubbery but flavour-packed tomatoes and enough garlic to keep vampires away until Christmas.

Getting Stuck, Getting Out

Public transport exists but teases. ALSA bus 210 leaves Guadalajara at 13:30 Monday to Saturday and 18:30 weekdays only; the return journey departs Pioz at 06:45 and 19:15. Miss the evening bus and a taxi costs €35—more than the average nightly rate of the nearest hotel, 20 kilometres away. Car hire is sensible: from Madrid airport take the A-2 east, peel off at Los Santos de la Humosa and follow the M-235 for 19 km of empty road. In winter add ten minutes for fog thick enough to hide the wind turbines; in summer expect sunflower traffic as farmers move harvesters wider than the lane.

Accommodation choices are thin. The solitary casa rural sleeps four and lists for €90 per night on the usual booking sites; British reviewers praise the Wi-Fi, complain about the church bells, and warn that the nearest supermarket closes at 14:00 on Saturdays. Most visitors base themselves in Guadalajara and day-trip, but that means skipping the late-night chatter of the plaza when day-trippers have left and locals reclaim their benches.

When Pioz Pretends to Be Loud

Fiestas punch above their weight. Around 15 August the Virgen de la Asunción turns the village into an open-air sound system: brass bands at 03:00, paella for 800 in the sports centre, and a foam machine that fills the square with white bubbles smelling faintly of washing-up liquid. Book accommodation early—or, better, arrive two days after the chaos when rubbish bags pile like sandcastles and the bakery runs out of custard tarts by 09:30. September brings the Cristo de la Salud procession, slower, older, scented with incense and anisette. Visitors are welcome but not essential; these events happen whether anyone watches or not.

The Honest Verdict

Pioz offers little that you can’t find in a hundred other Spanish villages, yet that is precisely its appeal. Come for the altitude that clears Madrid’s heat from your lungs, for the plateau light that turns stone walls honey-coloured at 18:00, for the realisation that Spain still contains places where tourism is a footnote rather than the economy. Leave if you need museums, souvenir shops, or dinner before nine. The bell tower will still be ringing when you return—assuming the wind hasn’t carried the sound somewhere else entirely.