Villaseca de Henares

Seventy-four residents. That's fewer people than you'd find in a single carriage of the London Underground on a Tuesday morning. Yet Villaseca de Henares persists, its stone houses clinging to a ridge where the Henares River starts its journey towards Guadalajara and eventually the Atlantic.

The village sits 900 metres above sea level in La Alcarria's upper reaches, where the flat meseta begins its rumpled transition towards the Iberian System. From Madrid's Barajas Airport, it's a straightforward 95-kilometre drive up the A-2—barely longer than trekking from Oxford to Bristol, though the landscape could hardly be more different. Wheat fields and olive groves give way to something rougher: limestone outcrops, holm oak scrub, and those deceptive rolling hills that look gentle until you actually walk them.

Stone, Sky and Silence

Villaseca's architecture won't make it into coffee-table books on Spanish villages. The houses are built from what was available—local limestone, mud mortar, and Arabic tiles weathered to the colour of burnt toast. Walls are thick enough to keep out summer heat and winter cold; windows are small enough to keep out everything else. There's no central plaza with fountain and café tables, no ochre-washed church tower glowing at sunset. Instead, narrow lanes twist between farmsteads where chickens scratch in dusty yards and the occasional tractor tyre serves as a flower planter.

The parish church reflects this same pragmatism. Rebuilt piecemeal over centuries, it squats at the village's highest point like a watchman who's fallen asleep on duty. Inside, the decoration runs to functional wooden pews and a statue of the Virgin whose paint has faded to tasteful neutrals. Sunday mass draws a congregation that rarely fills the first three rows.

What Villaseca does offer is space to breathe. Stand at the village's southern edge and the land falls away in a series of folds towards the Henares gorge. On clear days—and most days are clear here—you can see vultures wheeling on thermals, their six-foot wingspans casting shadows across the scrub. Golden eagles nest in the higher crags; eagle owls hunt the slopes at dusk. Bring binoculars and patience rather than expecting hides and information boards.

Walking Without Waymarks

This isn't the Lake District. There are no gift shops selling laminated route cards, no tea rooms waiting at walk's end. What you get is a network of agricultural tracks that link Villaseca with neighbouring hamlets like Corduente and Alcoroches. Most walkers follow the gravel road that drops 200 metres to the Henares, crossing the river on a medieval packhorse bridge before climbing back through stands of Portuguese oak. Allow two hours, carry water, and don't count on phone signal once you leave the ridge.

Spring brings the best rewards. Rainfall—what little there is—transforms the hillsides into a brief tapestry of lavender, thyme and white rockrose. By late May the grasses have turned gold, crunching underfoot like shredded wheat. Summer walking means starting early; temperatures regularly top 35°C by midday, and shade is a rare commodity. Autumn offers cooler air and the chance to spot migrant honey buzzards riding thermals southwards.

Winter visits come with caveats. At this altitude, night frosts can occur from October onwards. Snow isn't common but when it arrives, the CM-100 becomes entertainingly treacherous. The Spanish habit of fitting winter tyres remains optional rather than expected. If you're booking the Parador de Sigüenza for a December weekend—and you should, its castle ramparts are magnificent when dusted white—check weather forecasts and consider chains.

What You Won't Find

Let's be clear about what Villaseca lacks. There's no pub, no shop, no petrol station. The last bar closed when Señora Martín retired in 2018; her son now runs a garage in Sigüenza and shows no interest in reviving the family business. Mobile coverage is patchy at best—Vodafone users might manage one bar on the church steps, EE customers should prepare for digital detox.

Food requires forward planning. The nearest supermarket is a 20-minute drive away in Sigüenza, where the Mercadona stocks decent Manchego and tolerable Rioja. Better still, time your visit for Thursday morning and hit Sigüenza's market: local honey, wild asparagus when in season, and those knobbly Alcarria potatoes that roast to perfection in wood-fired ovens. If self-catering feels too much like hard work, the Parador's restaurant does a respectable cordero asado—though at €28 for half a roast lamb shoulder, it's not exactly pub-lunch pricing.

When the Village Wakes Up

August transforms Villaseca. The population swells to perhaps 200 as former residents return from Madrid and Barcelona. The village's fiesta is a three-day affair centred on the Feast of the Assumption. There's a communal paella cooked in a pan the size of a satellite dish, followed by dancing in the street to a sound system that hasn't been updated since the 1990s. Visitors are welcome but don't expect tourist-friendly explanations—this is family business, conducted in rapid Castilian with regional accents thick enough to cut.

The pig slaughter still happens too, though it's become a private rather than communal affair. If you're renting a nearby cottage in January, you might glimpse a carcass hanging from a balcony, but don't anticipate being invited to join the morcilla-making. These traditions continue for the villagers themselves, not as heritage theatre for outsiders.

Practicalities Without the Palaver

Getting here really does require wheels. British Airways, Ryanair and easyJet all serve Madrid from multiple UK airports; book early for half-term and August, when Spanish city dwellers head for their ancestral villages. Hire cars cluster in Terminal 1—book an automatic if you're not confident on Spain's hill starts. From the airport, it's motorway almost all the way: A-2 east to Torija, then CM-100 north through landscapes that grow progressively emptier.

Accommodation choices are limited. The Parador de Sigüenza sits 20 kilometres away in its hilltop castle—worth booking even if only for breakfast on the ramparts. Standard doubles run €140–180 depending on season; cheaper rooms in the converted convent across the courtyard sacrifice views for fifty euros less. Closer options include rural houses in Villaseca de Uceda (confusingly similar name, check before booking) and a handful of B&Bs around Sigüenza's medieval core.

Come prepared for solitude rather than spectacle. Villaseca de Henares offers something increasingly rare: a Spanish village that hasn't been polished for visitors, where the loudest sound is church bells marking hours that barely matter. Bring walking boots, a sense of direction, and enough supplies for the day. The village will provide the rest—stone walls warmed by centuries of sun, skies that stretch uninterrupted from horizon to horizon, and the quiet realisation that places can survive perfectly well without being "discovered" at all.