Santa Ana de Pusa

The petrol gauge flirts with empty somewhere past the last roundabout in Toledo. From here it's 75 km of empty road, cork oak shadows and the occasional shepherd who'll raise two fingers from the steering wheel in the half-wave reserved for strangers. Santa Ana de Pusa doesn't announce itself with brown heritage signs; the village simply appears when the tarmac narrows and the land tips upwards to 600 m. One moment it's dehesa and wheeling vultures, the next a cluster of whitewashed cubes clinging to a ridge like swallows' nests on a barn beam.

This is La Jara, the province's forgotten thumbprint, a region bypassed first by the A-roads and later by the guidebooks. The approach road climbs through scrub of rockrose and strawberry tree until the church tower pokes above the skyline. Park where the asphalt ends – there's no charge, no attendant, and on weekdays you can usually leave the car in whatever shade the parish wall throws.

Inside the village the streets are barely two donkeys wide. Walls are thick, windows small, roofs tiled in the burnt umber that turns blood-colour after rain. Nobody has 'restored' the houses here; they've simply been kept wind-proof and inhabited. A blacksmith's post, complete with ring for tying horses, stands outside number 14 Calle Real. The metal is polished by generations of rope, not heritage grants.

The Church That Doesn't Do Showmanship

The parish church of Santa Ana opens when the sacristan feels like it – usually ten minutes before mass on Saturday evening. Step inside and the temperature drops ten degrees. The nave is plain stone, no gilded excess, just a single baroque altar whose paint has faded to tobacco and terracotta. Look closer: the candlesticks are farm tools turned upside down and re-welded, the Stations of the Cross painted on tin by a 19th-century schoolteacher. There's no ticket desk, no QR code, just the faint smell of beeswax and the creak of a door that may have been hanging since the Civil War.

Outside again, the plaza measures perhaps thirty paces across. Elderly men play dominoes under the lone cedar, slamming ivory tiles onto a stone table scarred by decades of afternoon sun. They'll nod if you greet them, then return to dissecting last night's Barça game. Tourists are still infrequent enough to be memorable, yet not yet lucrative enough to interrupt.

Walking Without Waymarks

Santa Ana functions as a trailhead rather than a destination. Pick any track that leaves the upper houses and within ten minutes you're among holm oaks and cork bark peeling like burnt paper. The GR-134 long-distance footpath passes nearby, but local shepherds have been using these routes since before acronyms. A useful strategy: download the free Mapas de España app before you lose signal, then follow the stone walls. They always lead somewhere – usually to an abandoned cortijo where swallows nest in the rafters and a stone trough still holds rainwater.

Spring brings the colour. From late March the slopes flare yellow with Spanish broom, then purple with lavender and the odd rogue peony. Temperatures sit in the low twenties – perfect for a four-hour loop that drops into the Alburquillo valley and climbs back past the ruins of an 18th-century lime kiln. Take water; the only bar is in the village and it shuts at three.

October is even better. The summer furnace has cooled, mushrooms push through the leaf litter, and the resident wild boar are fat on acorns. Dawn patrols produce hoof-prints the size of a child's hand pressed into the red clay. If you're quiet you may hear the grunt of a stag on the opposite ridge – La Jara's deer population has doubled since hunting was restricted in 2018.

What Passes for Lunch

Back in the village, lunchtime options are limited to Bar La Plaza, a room knocked through somebody's front parlour. The menu is hand-written and shorter than this paragraph. Expect cocido of lentils and chorizo, or a plate of migas – fried breadcrumbs with grapes and thick rashers of pancetta. A caña of draft beer costs €1.60; the wine comes in an unlabelled bottle that started life containing olive oil. They don't do pudding, but the owner's wife may appear with a saucer of membrillo – quince paste so firm it could tile a roof.

If you need something more formal, drive 18 km to Los Navalmorales where Casa Gaspar serves roast kid on Sundays. Book ahead; half the province seems to descend for the 3 p.m. sitting.

When the Village Fills Up

Visit in late July and the population quadruples. The fiestas de Santa Ana last four days, climaxing with a procession where the parish statue is carried round the square to a brass band that learned its trade in Franco-era military academies. Rockets explode at breakfast time, paella pans appear in the street, and teenagers who grew up in Madrid or Barcelona re-occupy their grandparents' houses. Accommodation disappears; if you must come then, reserve months ahead or expect to sleep in the car.

Winter is the opposite. January mornings hover just above freezing; the mist pools in the valleys so only the church tower shows, a stone ship on a white sea. Wood smoke drifts from every chimney, and the kilometre to the petrol station in neighbouring Pusa feels longer in the half-light. Yet the clarity is extraordinary – on a good day you can pick out the snow on the Sierra de Gredos fifty kilometres west. Bring a jacket; the sun may be bright but the wind has crossed the Meseta unobstructed since Valladolid.

Getting There, Staying There

No train comes within 40 km. From Madrid's Estación Sur take the ALSA coach to Talavera de la Reina (1 hr 45), then a local bus on weekdays at 14:30 that reaches Santa Ana by four. The return leaves at seven the following morning – miss it and you're hitch-hiking.

Drivers should budget €25 in tolls if they use the AP-41 from the capital; the free N-502 is half an hour slower but passes through oak forests that turn bronze in November. Once here, the sole accommodation is Casa Rural La Tejera, three doubles built into a 19th-century bread oven. Rates hover around €70 for two, breakfast included: thick coffee, churros the owner's cousin fries in the next village, and homemade jam that tastes of the strawberries that refuse to grow anywhere else at this altitude.

Exit Through the Gift Shop That Isn't

There isn't one. The only souvenirs are what you collect in your pockets – a cork tile prised from the forest floor, the memory of dominoes slapped onto stone, the smell of thyme released by your boots. Santa Ana de Pusa will not change your life, but it might reset your expectations of what constitutes a worthwhile journey. Leave before dusk; the road back to the motorway snakes through black-shouldered hills where Iberian lynx have been spotted again. Turn the heater on, check the mirror, and the village dissolves into darkness quicker than it appeared. Behind you, the church bell strikes the hour for people who still measure time by the sun on the plaza wall, not by the next tour group rounding the corner.