La Gineta

The cereal fields outside La Gineta shimmer like a salt flat in mid-May. Stand on the concrete bench by the church and the horizon seems to bend; wheat, barley and the occasional stripe of vineyard roll away until colour dissolves into heat haze. At 688 m above sea level the village is neither mountain eyrie nor lowland hamlet—just high enough for the wind to carry the smell of dry earth and sheep before it reaches the single traffic light in the centre.

This is commuter-belt Castilla-La Mancha. The A-3 motorway slips past two kilometres south, so Madrid’s airport is two hours fifteen by hire car, Valencia ninety minutes farther on. Most visitors treat La Gineta as a breather between the two cities, or as a place to sleep after landing late. They wake to streets wide enough for ox-carts, whitewashed houses with wooden gates the colour of strong tea, and a soundtrack of sparrows arguing in the plane trees. The population is officially 2,613, though you’d never guess it at 11 a.m. when half the village is already out in the fields and the other half is behind closed shutters waiting for the cool hours to return.

A church that grew like topsy

The profile of La Gineta is dominated by the tower of San Pedro Apóstol, a parish church patched together over four centuries. Step inside and you can read the masonry like tree rings: a thirteenth-century base, Baroque swell in the seventeenth, nineteenth-century plasterwork trying hard to look neo-Gothic. The side chapel smells of candle wax and floor polish; someone is usually replacing the flowers even on a Tuesday. If the door is locked—common outside fiesta weekends—ask in the bar opposite. The owner keeps the key in a coffee tin under the counter and will hand it over without ceremony, provided you return it before the lunchtime rush begins at two.

Beyond the church the grid loosens into lanes that remember older footpaths. Many houses still have the family name painted on the lintel in blue serif capitals, a habit from the 1940s when the postman refused to learn house numbers. Peer through an open portal and you’ll see the classic Manchegan courtyard: a wellhead in the middle, a motorbike under a tarpaulin, last week’s washing strung between iron balconies. These patios are working spaces, not Instagram moments; farmers stack feed sacks where city visitors expect geraniums.

Bread, oil and the absence of cash

There is no cash machine in La Gineta. The last one disappeared when the savings bank closed in 2013, so fill your wallet at Motilla del Palancar, twelve kilometres back towards the motorway. Cards are accepted in the bakery—just—but the Tuesday market stall that sells kitchen knives and espadrilles is cash only. Mobile coverage is patchy; Vodafone and Three struggle, EE fares better. The village shop opens 9–1.30, closes for siesta, then reappears at 5–8. Stock is basic: UHT milk, tinned beans, tinned squid, two types of local cheese wrapped in waxed paper. If you are self-catering, shop in Albacete before you arrive; the Mercadona on the ring road has everything and the car park is large enough for British estate cars unused to tight Spanish bays.

For breakfast join the farmers in Bar Central on Plaza de España. Coffee is €1.20, toast with grated tomato and a thread of olive oil €2. A glass of decent La Mancha white—yes, at eight in the morning—adds another €1.50 and nobody blinks. The owner, Jesús, speaks slow, school-book English learned from a daughter now at university in Leeds. Ask him for the daily menu at lunch; three courses, bread and a quarter-litre of house wine costs €11 and you’ll eat whatever Teresa, the cook, felt like making: perhaps pisto manchego topped with a fried egg, then lamb shoulder that collapses at the nudge of a fork, finally a dish of what the menu poetically calls “Manchegan cheese with quince” but is in fact a slab of cured manchego and a brick of membrillo you could resole shoes with.

Walking where the sky wins every argument

There are no signed footpaths, but the agricultural tracks are public and the farmers friendly. Strike north-east past the cemetery and within ten minutes houses give way to golden stubble. In April the same earth is emerald; in July it turns the colour of digestive biscuits. The plain is so flat that the grain silos at Elche de la Sierra—fifteen kilometres away—appear within touching distance. Distances deceive: a gentle hour’s walk reaches an isolated stone hut used for storing sheep feed; two hours will take you to the tarmac road to Montealegre del Castillo, population 1,004, where a single bar serves ice-cold lager for €1.50 and seems like metropolitan luxury.

Cyclists appreciate the same grid of caminos: hard-packed limestone, virtually no traffic, gradients so gentle you only notice them when the return journey takes half the time. Bring two bottles; there is no shade and summer temperatures flirt with 38 °C. Wind turbines thrum on the southern ridge; their blades cast moving shadows that race across the wheat like cloud ghosts.

Fiestas, fireworks and the August squeeze

San Pedro Apóstol is feted during the last full weekend of June. The religious bit—procession, brass band, priest with portable megaphone—lasts three hours. The secular bit—paella for 800, outdoor disco, makeshift bullring constructed from lorries and scaffolding—goes on for three days. Rooms disappear first, then space in the village car park. If you hate crowds, come a week earlier and watch the preparations: teenage boys practising heifer dodging in the football pitch, women arguing over whose turn it is to stir the giant paella pan borrowed from the neighbouring town.

August 10–15 brings the summer fiesta. Half the population returns from Madrid or Valencia, cars clog the wide streets, and the solitary cash point in Motilla runs dry. Accommodation prices double; some casas rurals insist on five-night minimum stays. The payoff is atmosphere: open-air cinema showing Spanish dubbed versions of 1990s Hollywood blockbusters, fireworks that begin at 2 a.m., and a sense that for six nights La Gineta believes it is the centre of the province.

When to arrive, when to leave

April and May turn the plain an almost Irish green; temperatures hover around 22 °C and night skies are sharp enough to spot Orion’s belt without squinting. September light is softer, the grain harvest in, the soil tilled to a coffee-brown corduroy. Both seasons suit walkers, photographers and anyone who wants the pool to themselves at the rural house.

July and August belong to lizards and cicadas. Sightseeing is best done before 11 a.m.; afterwards retreat behind thick walls or drive the half-hour to the wetlands of Lagunas de Ruidera where you can swim among carp. Winter is quiet, occasionally bitter. Night frosts whiten the ploughed furrows; daytime highs struggle past 8 °C. The village can feel deserted, but the bar still opens and the lamb stew tastes better when the sky is the colour of pewter.

Leave on a weekday morning and the A-3 carries you straight back to Madrid for an afternoon flight. Stay for a second coffee and you’ll notice the same three men on the same bench, caps pulled low, discussing rainfall with the solemnity of hedge-fund managers reviewing the market. They were there yesterday; they will be there tomorrow. La Gineta does not try to charm; it simply continues, and for some travellers that continuity is worth the detour.