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about Pozo de Guadalajara
Expanding municipality near the capital; retains its medieval pillory and historic inn.
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A Village That Refuses to Perform
The church bell strikes noon and the only sound afterwards is a tractor grinding through wheat stubble. No souvenir shops fling open their shutters. No tour buses disgorge selfie sticks. Pozo de Guadalajara simply gets on with Thursday, exactly as it has since the Moors dug the first water wells that gave the place its name.
This is rural Castilla-La Mancha without the costume department. The houses are a mish-mash: ochre adobe walls butt against 1980s brick extensions, satellite dishes bloom above timber gates older than the Spanish republic. Five thousand people live here year-round, not for the benefit of weekenders but because the soil supports them, the commute to Guadalajara city is only 25 minutes, and the mortgage on a three-bedroom house costs less than a garage parking space in Kensington.
Walking the Agricultural Chessboard
Leave the car by the stone trough in Plaza de la Constitución – parking is still free and plentiful – and follow Calle Real uphill. The gradient is gentle enough for a pushchair, steep enough to remind you that this plateau sits 900 m above sea level. Whitewash flakes off corner houses like old pastry, revealing the granite underneath. Every so often a brass plaque reads “Casa del siglo XVIII” without any further fanfare; nobody has thought to rope it off or sell tickets.
At the crest stands the parish church, dedicated to the Assumption. Its tower is square, plain, the colour of dry biscuits. Inside, the air smells of candle wax and floor polish rather than incense and tourism. The retablo is 17th-century, gilded but not garish, and the sacristan will unlock the door if you ask in the bakery next door – the key lives in an old tobacco tin under the counter. Donations go to the roof fund; last winter’s gales ripped off three tiles.
A circular loop of lanes brings you back to the centre in twenty minutes unless you stop to peer into courtyards where onions plait from ceiling beams and a canary sings in a cage. The village diagram is irregular, more Arabic than Roman, so every turn presents a slice of agricultural theatre: a man mending a harrow, a woman peeling potatoes into a plastic bucket, a delivery van selling loaves from the back doors at one euro twenty a pop.
The Taste of Thyme and Mutton
There are three bars and they open when the owners feel like it. The safest bet is La Posada on Calle Nueva, where the menu is written on a strip of brown cardboard and changes according to what the owner’s cousin has shot. Expect cordero al estilo alcarreño – shoulder of lamb slow-roasted with garlic and thyme until it collapses at the touch of a fork. A plate feeds two hungry walkers and costs fourteen euros. The gazpacho pastor is nothing like Andalucían gazpacho; it’s a hot mutton stew thickened with bread and smoked paprika, rib-sticking enough to keep shepherds upright through a frost.
La Alcarria honey carries Denominación de Origen status and every family seems to keep a dozen hives. Buy a 500 g jar from the counter of the agricultural co-op (open 09:00-13:00, closed Sunday and sometimes Monday) for six euros fifty. The flavour is sharp with lavender and rosemary – spread it on the local pan de pueblo and the combination tastes like walking through the scrub in May.
Setting Out Across the Stubbled Plain
North of the last street the wheat fields begin. They roll in gentle swells, more Norfolk than Peak District, edged by lines of holm oak and kermes oak that provided charcoal for Guadalajara’s foundries two centuries ago. A lattice of farm tracks, all public, allows you to stitch together walks of any length. The GR-113 long-distance path skirts the village if you fancy a thirteen-kilometre loop to the ruins of the old wells; boots are sensible after rain because the clay clings like wet biscuit dough.
Spring brings red poppies and white asphodels so bright they seem to vibrate. By July the colour has burnt off and the land turns bronze; take a hat because shade is theoretical. Autumn smells of distilled aniseed from the fennel that colonises the verges, and winter can deliver a knife-cold wind straight from the Meseta – gloves recommended.
Cyclists appreciate the near-absence of traffic. The CM-2000 ring road keeps most cars away, leaving secondary lanes where you can pedal for an hour and meet only a tractor and a dog convinced it can outrun carbon. Gradients rarely top three per cent; the challenge is headwind that can double your journey time without warning.
When the Village Remembers It Has Company
Mid-August fiestas turn the place briefly gregarious. People who left for Madrid or Barcelona thirty years ago reappear with children who speak city Spanish and look faintly alarmed. Brass bands play pasodobles in the square until two in the morning, and the baker’s husband sets up a bar in his garage. Visitors are welcome but not fussed over; buy a raffle ticket for the pig if you want instant acceptance.
Holy Week is quieter – three processions, no incense machines, everybody knows the drummer’s mother. If you happen to be passing, stand to the side of the street and you’ll be handed a candle. There is no charge, no commentary, no photographer selling fridge magnets afterwards.
Getting Here, Staying Sensible
From Madrid Barajas take the A-2 towards Barcelona, peel off at Guadalajara and follow the CM-2000 north for 19 km. The journey takes fifty minutes on a quiet day, ninety if the capital is feeling theatrical. There is no train; buses run twice daily from Guadalajara bus station, timed for market days and not much else.
Accommodation is limited to two guesthouses, both on Calle San Roque. Rooms are clean, Wi-Fi flickers, and breakfast is coffee, toast and the local version of doughnuts. Expect forty-five euros a night; book by telephone because websites are regarded with suspicion. Alternatively, stay in Guadalajara where the Parador occupies a 17th-century palace and Pozo makes an easy half-day excursion.
Bring cash – many traders close their card machines at 14:00 sharp – and carry water if you plan to walk; farm fountains are no longer maintained. Mobile coverage is patchy on the northern tracks; download your map before setting out.
Pozo de Guadalajara will not change your life. It will, however, show you what much of Spain looks like when nobody is watching: hardworking, slightly frayed, generous without applause. Turn up on an ordinary Thursday, buy a beer, listen to the wheat rustling in the wind, and you will have seen something more honest than most postcards ever manage.
