Mora

A Plaza That Still Belongs to Locals

Half past twelve on a Saturday and the thermometer outside the chemist already reads 34 °C. The aluminium shutters on most shops are rolling down with a clatter that echoes round Plaza de España, yet the square itself is filling up. Grandmothers claim benches in descending order of age, farmers in immaculate white shirts park their 4×4 pickups on the cobbles, and the bar owner drags three extra tables into the shade of the plane trees because he knows what’s coming. By one o’clock every chair is taken, the first bottles of tinto de verano are sweating on paper mats, and the only foreign accent you’ll hear is probably your own. This is Mora at lunch rush—no tour leaders, no bilingual menus, just a Toledo-province market town that happens to have 5,000 inhabitants who still eat together in public.

At 717 m above sea level the village sits high enough to catch a breeze, but not high enough to escape the furnace of July and August. Those months empty the streets between 14:00 and 20:00; even the dogs know to crawl underneath parked cars. Spring and autumn are the comfortable windows—late March when the cereal plains turn neon green, or mid-October when stubble fields glow bronze and the olive harvest begins. Winter is crisp, often minus 3 °C at dawn, yet the light stays sharp and the cafés keep their doors open so the sun can slant across the tiled floors.

What the Castle Became and What It Didn’t

Mora’s medieval fortress is now a state primary school. You can’t climb battlements or buy a fridge magnet; instead you’ll hear a playground bell ring at ten and watch parents lean against the stone wall waiting for seven-year-olds to spill out. That pretty much sums up the town’s attitude to heritage: useful first, photogenic second. Walk south-east for three minutes and the Iglesia de San Miguel does allow visitors until 13:00. Its tower is a later add-on, the kind of solid rectangle that looks capable of withstanding another thousand years of wheat plains and North African winds. Inside, the retablo is gilded enough to remind you this was once wool-route money, but the stone floor is worn concave by centuries of farm boots, so the effect is practical grandeur rather than cathedral dazzle.

The old noble houses scattered nearby won’t have English placards either. Peer through the iron grilles and you’ll see 18th-century courtyards now hosting satellite dishes and children’s bicycles. One doorway on Calle de los Reyes still bears the family crest of the Dávila family; the paint has flaked, but the carving is deep enough to survive another century of weather. That’s about as selfie-friendly as Mora gets, which is exactly why some travellers prefer it to the manicured centres of nearby Ocaña or Consuegra.

Bread, Oil and the Correct Use of Garlic

Food here is calibrated for people who spent the morning on a tractor. Portions are large, garlic is non-negotiable, and everything arrives with a quarter-litre of local olive oil already on the table. The menú del día costs between €17 and €25 depending on whether you choose the workers’ bar on the industrial estate or the white-napkin place facing the town hall. Either way you get three courses, a basket of dense country bread, and a bottle of La Mancha wine that would retail in Britain for a tenner. Safe orders: gazpacho manchego (a meat-and-tortilla stew, nothing like the chilled Andalusian soup), pisto con huevo (Castilian ratatouille crowned by a fried egg), or merluza a la plancha if you need something that doesn’t fight back. Vegetarians survive on pisto and the almond biscuits called tiznaos; vegans should probably pack emergency nuts.

Kitchens shut at 15:30 sharp. Arrive at 15:25 and they’ll feed you happily; arrive at 15:35 and the cook is already pulling on her jacket for the siesta. Evening service doesn’t restart until 20:30, so plan a long walk or a hotel siesta in between. Market day (Saturday) is the best time to browse stalls of queso manchego—ask for curado if you want the two-year-old sheep-milk version that bites back like a strong cheddar.

Plains, Windmills and the Wrong Mora

The cereal ocean starts at the last streetlight. Drive five kilometres north on the CM-412 and you’ll see four restored windmills on a low ridge; they’re not signposted, the track is gravel, and the sails are locked, but the door of Molino Burro is usually open. Climb inside and you can still smell dried grain in the wooden hopper. This is where Cervantes’ Quixote tilted; the tourist office in Toledo hands out a free map titled Ruta de Quijote that plots the exact spot, though phone signal is patchy so screenshot the route before you leave.

Serious hikers head south towards the Cijara reservoir, 25 km away, but you can get a taste by following the signed 7 km Vía Verde that starts behind the bus station. It’s a former railway bed, dead flat, with views of holm oaks and the odd farmhouse that looks semi-abandoned until washing appears on the line. Take water—shade is theoretical.

Do triple-check your GPS before setting off. Spain contains three Moras: this one, Mora de Rubielos in Teruel (mountains, 4 hours east), and Mora la Nova in Tarragona (coast, 5 hours east). More than one British driver has arrived in the wrong province cursing Google.

Getting Stuck (or Not)

Mora has no railway station despite what the National Rail website claims. The Mora-Entrenúcleos stop is 12 km away on a minor road with no bus connection—useless unless you fancy an expensive taxi. From Madrid take the ALSA coach from Estación Sur; it leaves roughly every two hours, costs €9–15, and deposits you in Plaza de España just in time for lunch. Car hire is faster: A-4 south, then CM-42 west, 90 minutes if you avoid Friday evening exodus traffic.

Accommodation is thin on the ground. Hotel Beatriz on the western bypass has 40 rooms, a pool open June–September, and doubles around €70 including breakfast. The only alternative is a handful of casas rurales in the surrounding hamlets—charming if you want total silence, impractical if you need walking-distance tapas. August books up with wedding parties; Easter week fills with processions that feature brass bands rehearsing until 02:00. Light sleepers should request a room at the back or stay in neighbouring Orgaz and drive in for the day.

When to Cut Your Losses

Come for a night, maybe two. Mora is a place to watch ordinary Spain function: the delivery van unloading pan de pueblo at dawn, the teenage peñas practising drum routines for September fiestas, the old men in the casino playing dominoes for 20-cent stakes. If that sounds dull, you’ll be happier in Toledo’s postcard maze half an hour away. But if you’ve ever wondered what happens beyond the conserved façades—how a town keeps going when the guidebooks ignore it—Mora answers with its sleeves rolled up and a second bottle of queso manchego already on the counter.