Tresjuncos

The first thing you notice is the horizon. It sits so far away that the tractors crawling across the wheat look like dark commas on a yellow page. At 800 metres above sea level, Tresjuncos hands visitors a sky that feels almost excessive—higher, wider and bluer than any coastal view, yet the nearest body of water is a farm reservoir twenty kilometres east.

A Grid of Whitewash and Tractor Oil

Two hundred and sixty-eight people live behind the neat façades that line Calle Real and its four cross-streets. Walls are chalk-white for a reason: summer highs nudge 38 °C and the glare can be vicious. Shutters stay closed until the sun tilts, then old men appear on stone benches with newspapers and small change for the bar. There is no boutique hotel, no converted convent, just a single guest flat above the bakery that opens when the owner remembers to check WhatsApp. Nights are cool even in July; bring a jumper.

The parish church, Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, squats at the geometric centre rather than rising above it. Its bell tower is only marginally taller than the grain silo on the edge of town, a reminder that harvest, not heaven, pays the bills. Step inside and the temperature drops ten degrees; the stone floor bears the wavy wear pattern of centuries of work boots arriving straight from the fields.

Walking Rings Around the Village

A complete circuit of the built-up area takes eighteen minutes if you resist counting storks on the rooftops. Once you leave the last lamppost behind, the agricultural tracks form a perfect Cartesian grid—one every kilometre, exactly wide enough for a combine harvester. They are public, sign-posted only by the occasional faded number on a concrete post. Turn right at the third junction and you reach the abandoned sheep fold of La Higuera; left at the fourth brings you to a solitary holm oak where bustards sometimes land at dusk. OS-style maps don’t exist at this scale; the locals navigate by telegraph poles and the position of the Sierra de Cuenca, a pale bruise on the southern skyline.

Spring brings colour in rectangles: green barley, purple vetch, the sudden yellow of oil-seed rape someone experimented with five years ago and keeps seeding. By late June the palette narrows to gold and khaki. Walk too far in July and the soil turns to a fine dust that powders your shoes like cheap turmeric.

What Arrives on the Daily Bread Van

There is no supermarket. A white van honks at ten o’clock each morning outside the ayuntamiento; inside you can buy sliced pan, kitchen roll and, on Fridays, frozen prawns. Fresh fish arrives once a fortnight, kept on ice that melts fast at this altitude. For anything more exotic—muesli, soya milk, a UK newspaper—you drive to Campo de Criptana, 28 minutes down the CM-412.

Meals eaten out are limited to Bar El Pósito, open from 07:00 for farmers who start before light. A coffee costs €1.20, a plate of migas—fried breadcrumbs laced with garlic and chorizo—€4.50. The owner, Mari-Carmen, will apologise that she has no menu in English, then describe every dish anyway while refilling your glass of tap water without being asked. Evening meals require forward planning: order the cocido by 12 p.m. or there won’t be a portion set aside.

When the Village Remembers How to Party

Normal weeks are quiet enough to hear the grain dryer at the cooperative three streets away. That changes during the fiestas patronales, held around 15 August. The population swells to roughly a thousand as grandchildren, cousins and emigrants who left for Madrid or Barcelona in the 1970s return. A sound rig appears in the plaza, pumping 1990s Spanish pop until the Guardia Civil turn up at 03:00 and ask politely for the volume to drop. On the final night a firework rocket is launched from the church roof; anyone still awake applauds from balconies draped with improvised bunting.

If you prefer smaller ritual, visit on 1 November. Families picnic among the marble graves in the cemetery outside the north gate, eating roasted chestnuts and leaving tiny glasses of anisette for the departed. Visitors are welcome; silence is not compulsory, just speak in the same volume you would in a pub garden.

Getting Here Without a Sat-Nav Nervous Breakdown

From Madrid-Barajas, take the A-3 south-east to Tarancón, then the CM-412 via La Almarcha. After 72 kilometres a brown sign the size of a dinner plate says “Tresjuncos 6 km”; turn left and follow the straight road across the plain. Petrol stations are scarce—fill up in Tarancón or risk pushing the hire car. Public transport is theoretical: one bus leaves Cuenca at 06:45 on Tuesdays and Fridays, returning at 17:30. Miss it and you have a €70 taxi ride.

Mobile coverage is patchy; Vodafone works on the west side of the plaza, Orange on the east. Neither manages data inside the church. Wi-Fi exists at the library, open Tuesday and Thursday 16:00–19:00, password scribbled on a paper donkey taped to the counter.

The Catch

Autumn nights can drop to 4 °C by late October; most rental flats lack central heating, offering instead a plug-in radiator that glows orange and smells of burnt dust. Winter fog lingers for days, erasing the famous horizon and turning every walk into a monochrome guessing game. August fiestas mean booming music until three in the morning; light sleepers should book somewhere on the southern edge of town or bring ear-plugs printed with the Spanish flag for politeness.

Tresjuncos will not change your life. It will, however, let you calibrate distance and silence in a country more often sold on flamenco and seafood. Bring binoculars, not bathing trunks, and expect to explain at least once why you came. The answer that seems to satisfy locals is “Porque aquí se respira”—because here, you can breathe.