Cañada Juncosa

The grain truck idles outside the only bar at half-past nine on a Tuesday morning. Its driver stands inside, stirring coffee thicker than motor oil while the barman recounts yesterday’s rainfall—six millimetres, enough to delay the barley harvest by perhaps a day. Nobody checks a watch; the conversation itself is the clock. This is Cañada Juncosa, 215 souls scattered across a ridge 850 m above the plains of Cuenca, and the timetable is still negotiated mouth to mouth.

Approach roads from the provincial capital unwind for 90 km, skirting solar farms and rows of black pine planted to hold back the wind. Tarmac straightens so stubbornly that lorries coming the other way appear as motionless specks for minutes before they finally flash past. Public transport reaches the village twice a week—market day Thursday and Saturday—then turns round immediately, so anyone without a car needs to like walking or staying overnight. Mobile coverage is reliable only on the north side of the church tower; WhatsApp messages pool there like swifts at dusk.

Stone, Lime and Weathered Timber

The village houses grew from what lay to hand: limestone rubble, river sand, beams of holm oak hauled up from the lowlands. Walls are a hand-span thick, whitewash refreshed every spring before the fiestas. Look closely and you’ll see how corners are rounded off, not from design but from decades of passing shoulder and cartwheel. Rooflines sag, accepting the weight of winter snow that, though brief, can cut the place off for 48 hours. Satellite dishes bloom on southern walls like metallic lichen—modernity accepted as long as it doesn’t shout.

The parish church of San Pedro keeps its bells in a squat tower more fortress than baroque. Inside, the air smells of candle wax and the floor dips in the centre where centuries of feet have polished the flagstones. There is no ticket desk, no multilingual panel, simply a printed notice asking men to remove hats and mobile phones to be silenced. Sunday mass at eleven still draws a decent congregation; visitors are welcome to stand at the back, though cameras are best left in pockets.

Outside, two streets converge on a triangle of concrete shaded by a single walnut tree. This is the Plaza Mayor, though no plaque announces it. Plastic chairs from the bar spill across the space; order a caña and it arrives with a paper plate of olives pickled by the owner’s sister. A coffee and tapa costs two euros—cash only, preferably small denomination notes because change is scarce.

Walking the Grain Belt

The surrounding landscape is not dramatic, but it is big. Wheat, barley and safflower roll out to every horizon, broken by stone walls that once marked vines before phylloxera arrived. Footpaths exist because farmers still use them: head north-east past the cemetery and a farm track leads 4 km to the abandoned hamlet of Los Alcores, its roofless houses now dove cotes. Spring brings red poppies stitched through the green; by late July the palette has burnt to bronze and the only movement is the occasional tractor trailing a plume of dust.

Summer hikes demand timing. Start at dawn when the thermometer already reads 22 °C, carry two litres of water, and expect no shade until the return leg. Autumn is kinder; mornings smell of damp earth and the stubble fields echo with the calls of migrating cranes. Winter walkers should reckon with a wind that arrives direct from the Meseta and can shave five degrees off the forecast; gloves are essential, and paths turn slick where clay has been churned by cattle.

Serious hikers sometimes link Cañada Juncosa to the GR-66 long-distance trail 12 km south, but way-marking is sporadic—OSM maps on a phone are more reliable than the faded paint blisters on rocks. Locals advise carrying a stick; not for the terrain, but to thwack thistles aside and announce your presence to the mastiffs that guard sheep flocks.

What You’ll Eat and Where You’ll Sleep

There is no hotel. The ayuntamiento rents two village houses that have been restored with EU funds: simple bedrooms, wood-burning stoves, hot-water showers powered by solar panels on the roof. Price is €45 a night for the entire two-bedroom house—collect the key from the municipal office between 17:00 and 19:00 or phone the caretaker whose number is pinned to the door. Sheets are provided, towels are not.

Meals hinge on the bar. Lunch is served from 14:00 to 15:30; arrive at 15:31 and the grill is already cooling. Expect gazpacho manchego (a game-and-bread stew, not the cold tomato soup of Andalucía), migas flecked with chorizo, and lamb shoulder slow-roasted in a wood oven so tender it collapses at the sight of a fork. A three-course menú del día with wine runs to €14. Vegetarians can ask for pisto—ratatouille topped with a fried egg—but choice is limited; coeliacs should bring their own bread.

Evening dining is trickier. The bar closes at 21:00 unless a local birthday party extends the licence; phone ahead if you’re counting on supper. Alternatively, buy supplies in Cuenca before you leave: the village shop opens two mornings a week and stocks tinned tuna, UHT milk, and not much else.

When the Village Multiplies

Festivities explode during the last weekend of August when emigrants return and the population quadruples. A brass band marches through the streets at questionable volume, processions shoulder the statue of the Virgen de la Estrella to the wheat fields for a short sermon, and Saturday night ends with dancing that lasts until the sky pales. Outsiders are welcomed, but beds are scarce; book the municipal house months ahead or expect to sleep in the car.

Smaller events punctuate the agricultural calendar: the blessing of the fields on San Isidro (15 May) when a tractor draped in flowers leads a short parade, and the matanza weekend in mid-November where families gather to slaughter a pig and fill the morning air with the scent of paprika and garlic. Visitors may be invited to taste fresh morcilla; polite practice is to bring a bottle of decent wine in return.

Getting There, Getting Out

Drive. A hire car from Madrid-Barajas takes two hours via the A-3 and CM-412; fuel at the motorway services because pumps in the village have been closed since 2018. Roads are good but monotonous; plan a stop in Villanueva de la Jara for coffee and a stroll around its colonnaded main square. In wet weather the final 8 km of regional road can flood at a dried-up ford—locals lay branches in the water to mark the edge, a rustic SAT-NAV you ignore at your peril.

If you must use public transport, catch the morning ALSA coach from Madrid to Cuenca (1 hr 45 min), then the Thursday school run that leaves Plaza de la Merced at 13:00, reaches Cañada Juncosa at 15:30 and returns at 06:45 next day. Yes, that early. Miss it and the next connection is Saturday.

The Honest Verdict

Cañada Juncosa will not change your life. You will not tick off a UNESCO site, nor boast about Michelin stars. Mobile reception is patchy, choice is limited, and the most exciting event might be watching grain lorries tip their load at the cooperative. Yet for travellers who measure value in silence, in the smell of new bread from an oven fired with vine prunings, in skies so dark you can trace the Milky Way without squinting, the village delivers a straightforward bargain: leave the car keys on the hall table, walk until the tarmac turns to dust, and feel the plateau wind scour the city from your lungs. Stay two nights, three at most—any longer and you risk becoming part of the furniture, expected to help peel potatoes for the next fiesta. Enjoy the pause, then drive away before the baker learns your name.