Villarta de San Juan

The church clock strikes two and every bar shutter in Plaza de España rolls down with the finality of a stage curtain. By twenty past, Villarta de San Juan has closed for lunch, leaving only the swallows and a British cyclist who assumed “open all day” meant the same thing as in Seville. It doesn’t. This is La Mancha, and time still bends to the rhythm of wheat, wine and siesta.

At 626 m above sea level the town sits high enough for the air to feel thin in winter yet mercifully cooler than the baking plain below. The Sierra de San Pedro looms 40 km west; otherwise the horizon is a ruler-drawn line of cereal fields that shimmer gold by June and stay that way until the combine harvesters arrive in July. Wind turbines turn on distant ridges, modern cousins of the wooden molinos Cervantes scattered across these hills four centuries ago.

A Grid for Grain, Not Selfies

Villarta’s planners never bothered with tourist optics. The streets form a neat grid anchored by the 16th-century Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Paz, its tower a handy beacon when the afternoon sun erases all sense of direction. Houses are brick and ochre render, not the postcard white of Andalucía, and the doors are painted the same deep green you see in every agricultural town from Albacete to Zamora. Nobody has installed flowerpots purely for Instagram. The reward is a place that still functions for its 2,700 residents rather than for weekend rental yields.

Inside the church the temperature drops ten degrees. Retablos gilded in the 1700s glint in the half-light, and a small sign asks for a €1 donation towards roof repairs. Drop the coin in the box and the caretaker will unlock the sacristy so you can see the 15th-century Flemish triptych that normally hides behind a velvet curtain. It is not the Prado, but neither is it mentioned in any English guidebook, which means you will have it to yourself.

Bread, Oil and the Art of Doing Nothing

Come 13:30 the pavement tables of Bar Central fill with field hands in blue overalls. They order the menú del día—three courses, bread, wine and coffee for €11—and nobody speaks above a murmur. Try the migas ruleras, breadcrumbs fried in olive oil with garlic, grapes and bits of chorizo; it began as shepherd’s leftovers and ended up comfort food for an entire region. Finish with a slice of queso manchego curado that tastes more of sheep than of supermarket plastic, then ask for a carajillo—coffee laced with brandy—if you plan to cycle afterwards.

The waiter will warn you: cycling here is flat but not effortless. The road south towards Almagro runs ruler-straight for 18 km, yet a sneaker-gradient incline adds 200 m of elevation by the time you reach the sugar-beet plant. Take the quieter CM-412 east instead; after 6 km you reach a ridge where the land falls away into a sea of olive trees, and the only sound is the hum of high-tension cables. Road quality is excellent, traffic negligible, and every junction has a stone cross shaded by a cypress—perfect for a water break.

When the Town Lets its Hair Down

Visit in late August and the plaza is unrecognisable. The feria mayor brings casetas, fairground rides and a sound system that rattles windows until 05:00. Half of Madrid’s 606 postcode returns to the town of its grandparents, apartments overflow with cousins, and the municipal pool charges €2 for non-residents because “today we need the money for fireworks.” Book accommodation early or you will end up 30 km away in Ciudad Real.

January is quieter but equally committed. Fiestas de Nuestra Señora de la Paz pack the church for midnight mass, after which everyone files into the sports hall for chocolate con churros and a lottery-style raffle whose top prize is a leg of jamón. The ham is carried shoulder-high through the streets, preceded by a brass band playing the regional hymn. No tickets are sold online; turn up on the day and pay €3 cash.

Practicalities for the Curious

Villarta has two small food shops, a pharmacy, a cashpoint that refuses most foreign cards after 22:00, and a petrol station whose Sunday hours are best described as theoretical. The nearest train stop is 25 km away in Alcázar de San Juan; buses from Madrid Estación Sur reach Villarta in two hours, but only twice daily. A hire car collected at Barajas airport gives you freedom and costs around £35 a day in shoulder seasons.

Accommodation is limited to two guesthouses and a handful of Airbnb flats priced €45–€65 a night. None provides English-language television; bring a book. If you need conversation in anything other than Spanish, drive 12 km north to Herencia where the regional tourist office keeps bilingual staff.

Winter nights drop to –5 °C; summer afternoons top 38 °C. Spring brings waist-high poppies along the verges and is the sweetest season for walking the 10 km circular path that leaves from the cemetery gate and returns via an abandoned grain silo. Take two litres of water—shade is theoretical on the plain.

Leaving Without a Fridge Magnet

There is no souvenir shop. Instead, walk into Quesos La Mancha on Calle San Roque and ask José to vacuum-seal a wedge of 12-month cheese; it will survive the flight to Luton and annoy Border Control far less than a leg of ham. Alternatively, buy a bottle of rosado from the cooperative in neighbouring Tomelloso; chilled, it tastes of strawberries and the mineral dust that gives La Mancha wines their backbone.

British visitors currently sign the village guestbook at a rate of roughly one couple a month. The town neither courts nor resents outsiders; it simply carries on threshing barley, distilling wine spirit and closing the bar when the last regular goes home. Stay a night, stay a week—Villarta de San Juan will not try to sell you anything. The horizon, wide enough to watch weather arrive an hour before it hits, is included at no extra charge.