Casas de Benítez

The wheat stops the clock first. Somewhere east of Cuenca, the A-3 dissolves into the CM-412, the verges narrow, and the kilometre posts start counting down to a village that doesn’t appear on most UK sat-navs until you type the full name. Casas de Benítez sits at 890 m on the southern lip of the Meseta, high enough for the air to thin and for night-time temperatures to dip below 10 °C even in July. The only thing that moves faster than the clouds here is the light – it skids across unbroken plateau, turning the cereal rows from silver to brass before you’ve locked the hire-car.

A grid, a church, and 360 degrees of sky

Forget the tumbleweed fantasy of La Mancha. The streets are laid out on a strict agricultural grid, wide enough for a combine harvester to turn without clipping the eaves. Houses are single-storey, whitewashed, with doors painted the colour of sangria dregs. There is no medieval quarter, no baroque balcony to photograph; instead, the architecture is a working uniform. The 16th-century church of San Juan Bautista does rise slightly above the roofline, but its bell tower is more useful as a weather vane than as a monument – locals read the direction of the clouds by which face the swifts hit first.

Inside, the nave is cool and smells of candle wax and grain dust. The altarpiece was gilded in 1657, then repainted in 1936, and again in 1978; each restoration left a different shade of blue on the Virgin’s cloak, so she now appears to be wearing three dresses at once. Mass is at 11:00 on Sundays; turn up ten minutes early and the sacristan will unlock the west door whether you’re baptised or not.

Walking without waymarks

Casas de Benítez is the starting point for four signed footpaths, though “signed” is optimistic: a wooden post, a faded stripe, and then you’re on your own. The easiest is the 5 km Ruta de los Neveros, a gentle loop across fallow fields to two ice houses that stored snow before refrigeration. The path is dead flat, but at 900 m the sun is stronger than it looks – SPF 30 is sensible even in April. In May the verges explode with poppies the exact colour of a London bus; by late June the same verge is a brittle blonde, and grasshoppers crackle like faulty radio static.

For something longer, set off south-east along the cattle track towards the River Júcar gorge. After 45 minutes the plateau fractures into 150 m ochre cliffs; griffon vultures ride the thermals at eye level, and the only sound is the wind flapping your OS map. There is no bar at the turnaround point, only a stone hut used by goat herders. Bring water, figs, and a Spanish phrasebook – the shepherd who appears at dusk speaks perfect Castilian but no English, and he will offer churro cheese that tastes of thyme and rosemary.

Eating by appointment

The village has one grocery, Alimentación La Plaza, open 09:00–13:00 and 17:00–20:00. Bread arrives from the nearest bakery (Motilla del Palancar, 18 km) at about 10:30; if you want still-warm bollo, queue at 10:25. There is no pub, no tapas crawl, no Saturday-night chiringuito. Instead, meals are arranged like house calls. Julia, who lets the riverside cottage on the edge of the village, will shop and cook if you ask 24 hours ahead. Her cordero al estilo pastor – shoulder of lamb rubbed with garden sage, slow-roasted under terracotta – feeds six and costs €18 a head including a bottle of local tempranillo. Vegetarians get pisto manchego topped with a fried egg the size of a tea saucer.

Wine is poured from a plastic garrafa labelled Vino de la Casa; it’s made by her cousin in Villar de Olalla and clocks in at 14.5%. British guests usually request the younger roble style – less tannin, more cherry – which travels better with UK palates used to Beaujolais. Pudding is arroz con leche chilled on the marble slab of the 19th-century hearth; sprinkle cinnamon or, if you’re feeling homesick, a spoonful of strawberry jam.

Winter silence, summer furnace

Between November and March the village drops to 200 permanent residents. Thermometers can read –8 °C at dawn, and the mist sits in the valley like milk in a saucer. Heating is by butane bottle: each cylinder lasts about four days and costs €17.50 from the petrol station in Sisante. Bring slippers; stone floors are unforgiving. On the other hand, you’ll have the trails to yourself, and the light turns so sharp that the distant wind turbines look cut from cardboard.

July and August are the opposite extreme. Daytime highs of 38 °C send every living creature indoors between 14:00 and 18:00. The grocery shutters, the church door is left ajar for draught, and even the vultures soar higher to avoid the heat shimmer. Plan excursions for dawn or dusk; sunrise is at 07:05 in mid-July, and by 08:30 the sun already feels like a hand on your shoulder. The compensation is night-time astronomy: at 900 m and 40 km from the nearest streetlight, the Milky Way is a bright smear across the sky – no need for a telescope, only a jacket and a deckchair.

Getting there, getting out

The closest airport is Madrid-Barajas: leave the terminal, join the M-23, then the A-3 south for 140 km. Turn off at Tarancón, follow the CM-412 through Sisante, and watch for the stone miliar marked CB-14. Total driving time is 1 h 40 min on good tarmac, but the last 12 km are single-carriagement with the occasional tractor – allow another 15 min. Valencia is an alternative (1 h 30 min) if you’re combining the trip with the coast. There is no railway; a taxi from Cuenca will quote €70–80, and Uber doesn’t recognise the postcode.

Car hire is therefore non-negotiable, and a full-size spare wheel is wise – the verge is thorny with romero scrub. Fill the tank in Tarancón; the village has no petrol pump, and the nearest 24-hour station is 28 km away. If you must leave early on a Sunday, remember that Spanish law requires you to carry a hi-vis jacket for every occupant, plus two warning triangles. The Guardia Civil patrol the CM-412 at breakfast time, and fines are issued on the spot.

When the wheat is cut

By the second week of July the combine harvesters arrive in convoy, headlights on at 04:00 to beat the heat. They work anticlockwise around the village, leaving neat bales that look like giant Shredded Wheat. Children ride their bicycles behind the trailers, collecting stray ears for chickens. For visitors it’s a spectacle worth waking early for: the air fills with chaff and the smell of warm bread, and the horizon flickers with the orange hazard lights of €300,000 machines. Stand well back – the drivers wave, but they won’t stop for a photo.

Three days later the fields are stubble, the sky seems twice as large, and Casas de Benítez returns to its default setting of quiet. The church bell strikes the half-hour, a dog barks once, and the wheat – now stored in the co-op silo – waits for markets in Lisbon, Lagos, maybe Liverpool. You could drive away after breakfast and be in Madrid for lunch, but the dust on your shoes will still whisper the plateau’s mantra: no prisa, no ruido, solo campo.