Taragudo

The church bell strikes noon, but only six people hear it. Three are having coffee in the single bar, two are driving through, and one is sweeping her doorstep. This is Taragudo at midday, population forty-three, counting the dogs.

Seventy-seven kilometres northeast of Guadalajara, the village perches at 770 metres on a slight rise that passes for a hill in this part of Castilla-La Mancha. The cereal plateau stretches flat in every direction until it bumps against the distant silhouette of the Sierra de Ayllón. There is no dramatic gorge, no medieval castle, no Instagram backdrop—just an honest rectangle of stone houses, a tower that used to be taller, and fields that change colour with the farming calendar.

What passes for a centre

Taragudo's streets have no names worth remembering. They fan out from the plaza, itself barely the size of a London tennis court, where the Iglesia de San Pedro stands with its patched-up buttresses and 1950s roof tiles. The building is neither pretty nor ancient enough to merit a heritage plaque, yet it organises the entire settlement the way a magnet arranges iron filings. Walk fifty paces in any direction and you hit agricultural land; walk sixty and you are photographing larks.

The houses are built from whatever the ground provided: limestone, marl, mud brick, the occasional chunk of granite dragged in by cart. Walls are thick, windows small, doorways rounded to accept a loaded mule. Most roofs still carry Arab tile, the curved kind that looks like someone laid a row of red bananas upside-down. A handful of properties have been bought by weekenders from Madrid; you can spot them by the aluminium shutters and the potted geraniums that die in winter because nobody remembers to water them.

There is no souvenir shop. There is no museum, no guided tour, no brown sign pointing to a “mirador”. If you want to know why the upper part of the tower is brick instead of stone, you ask Concha, who will tell you—without pausing her knitting—that the masonry fell during the 1911 storm and the village used whatever was cheapest in Sigüenza that month.

Walking without a purpose

The pleasure of Taragudo is the total absence of spectacle. You set off down a farm track between wheat and barley, the soil pale and dusty, and within ten minutes the only sound is the metallic chirp of a calandra lark somewhere overhead. The paths are not waymarked; they are simply the routes that tractors take to reach each parcel. A circular wander of four kilometres brings you past an abandoned threshing floor, a derelict stone hut that once stored almonds, and a solitary holm oak where a buzzet eagle sometimes perches.

Spring arrives late on the plateau—mid-April rather than March—so if you come in early May you catch the fields at their most theatrical: green so bright it looks juvenile, splashed with scarlet poppies and the white foam of chamomile. By July the colour has burnt off and the landscape turns beige, then grey. August is for staying indoors until seven in the evening; even the swallows fly high to avoid the radiant heat. Autumn means stubble and plough, the smell of straw burning, and skies so clear you can make out the radio mast on a hill twenty-five kilometres away.

Bring water; there is no fountain outside the village and the bar closes when its owner feels like it. Footwear need not be technical, but soles should cope with loose chert that skitters like marbles. A lightweight jacket is wise even in June—at this altitude the breeze carries a knife.

What you will not eat here

Taragudo has no restaurant, no bakery, no weekly market. The nearest supermarket is in Cifuentes, nineteen kilometres west. If you arrive hungry you will stay hungry unless you have planned ahead. The bar—nameless, phone number scrawled on the door—opens around 10 a.m. and serves coffee, ice cream, and whatever frozen tapas fit in the chest freezer. On a good day there might be migas: breadcrumbs fried with garlic and diced bacon, heavy enough to keep a labourer going until sunset. On a bad day you get crisps.

The regional kitchen is designed for people who spend eight hours behind a plough. Think lamb shoulder slow-roasted with bay, gachas (a paprika-spiked porridge) poured over fried pork belly, and queso manchego so cured it squeaks between your teeth. Locals produce honey so thick the spoon stands upright; they will sell you a one-kilogram jar for eight euros if you ask in the bakery in neighbouring Valdeavellano. The wine is bulk tempranillo from Cuenca, brought in plastic five-litre containers that once held olive oil—perfectly drinkable, faintly reminiscent of salad.

When forty becomes four hundred

The village's annual fiesta happens around the third weekend of August, date set by the parish priest according to when the bishop can spare him. Suddenly every house regains its family: cars with Barcelona plates squeeze down lanes wide enough for a single donkey, grandmothers who now live in Zaragoza reclaim their kitchen chairs, and the plaza fills with folding tables. A sound system appears, powered by a cable that runs across the road and trips anyone who has had more than two beers. On the Saturday night a DJ plays Spanish eighties pop until three; on the Sunday a procession carries the statue of the Virgin two hundred metres to the church door while someone throws rose petals from an upstairs window. By Monday lunchtime the village is empty again, the rubbish bins overflowing, and the dogs look relieved.

If crowds of four hundred sound daunting, come instead on 29 June, the day of San Pedro, when the population merely doubles. After Mass the priest hands out blessed bread; the women compare whose loaf rose higher; and by two o'clock even the priest has gone home for a siesta.

Driving in, driving out

There is no railway. Buses from Guadalajara reach Valdeavellano de Tajo, seven kilometres away, three times a week—Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday—returning early the following morning. The timetable is printed on a laminated sheet taped inside the shelter; someone has scrawled “horario bajo petición” underneath, which means if you haven't phoned the day before the driver may not bother turning off the main road.

Your own wheels are essential. From Madrid take the A-2 east, exit at km 82 signed to Cifuentes, then follow the CM-201 through endless wheat. The tarmac narrows after Valdeavellano, hedges disappear, and the horizon lifts like a theatre curtain. Thirty minutes later you crest a gentle rise and Taragudo materialises: a brown smudge topped by a brick tower that looks slightly surprised to see you.

Petrol stations are scarce—fill up in Cifuentes or carry a jerrycan. Mobile coverage is patchy; Vodafone works on the north side of the plaza, Orange only if you stand on the church steps. There is no cash machine; the bar accepts cards but the reader is often “broken”.

Worth the detour?

Taragudo will never feature on a glossy regional brochure. It offers no pool, no boutique hotel, no artisanal gin distillery. What it does provide is a place still shaped by agriculture rather than tourism, where you can walk until your thoughts unravel and sit on a bench while the shadows lengthen across stone that has seen maybe eight generations. Bring a picnic, a pair of binoculars, and realistic expectations. Leave before sundown if frost is forecast; stay for the fiesta if you can tolerate loud music and small-talk about wheat prices. Either way, you will remember the silence longer than the sights.