Sisante

Sisante wakes before the sun. By six the bread van is idling in the square, hazard lights flashing while the driver drops off paper-wrapped barras at the only bar that opens at dawn. At 820 metres the air is thin enough to make an English cyclist wheeze, yet the village sits on a gentle rise rather than a crag; you get the altitude without the drama. Swifts wheel overhead, and the horizon is pure arable geometry—wheat, olive, vine—until it dissolves into a hazy rim of low sierras twenty kilometres away.

This is Castilla-La Mancha stripped of Don Quixote windmills and tour-bus choreography. The guidebooks leave Sisante blank, which is why Spanish wine hobbyists now treat it as an unhurried base for exploring the infant DO Manchuela. Between April and mid-June the countryside smells of fennel and bruised thyme; by late July the thermometer flirts with 38 °C, but evenings drop to 22 °C, cool enough to justify a jacket and a glass of the local clarete.

A Village That Forgot to Modernise (Almost)

The parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción squats at the top of a modest gradient—no hill, just enough slope to remind you this isn’t the pancake-flat meseta further west. Its stone walls are the colour of weathered cardboard, the bell tower more functional than pretty. Inside, the surprise is scale: barrel roof dizzyingly high, altarpiece crowded with gilt and crimson that feels almost Mexican. Mass is still announced on a chalkboard; times change when the priest is available.

Radiating from the church are three streets wide enough for a tractor and dog-leg alleys where you can touch both walls. Houses are rendered in lime the colour of faded butter; timber doors are studded and often ajar, revealing a slice of interior courtyard and, frequently, a grandmother in a plastic chair monitoring passers-by. There are no souvenir shops, no boutique hotels occupying a former convent, no chalked menu turístico. The nearest thing to gentrification is a single house painted charcoal-grey by a returning Madrilenian architect—locals still debate whether it counts as progress or provocation.

Walk ten minutes in any direction and the tarmac gives way to compacted clay tracks used by farmers in white vans. These lanes are the village’s unofficial leisure centre. On Sunday mornings you meet retired mechanics carrying plastic bags and a trowel: they are after wild asparagus, not Instagram glory. Follow one track south-east for forty minutes and you reach a ruined threshing circle; beyond it, the land folds into shallow ravines where red-legged partridge explode from the undergrowth like feathered firecrackers.

Wine Without the Theatre

Manchuela’s wineries are scattered across a thirty-minute radius by car. The largest, Bodegas Ponce, sits in Iniesta (population 4,800, famous for the footballer more than the grape). Their Friday tastings start at 11 a.m. and finish with a plate of morcilla on sourdough; book by WhatsApp and pay €12 in cash. Closer to Sisante, husband-and-wife team Lola and Luis run Casas de la Vega from a converted grain store. They speak no English, but the labels are bilingual and the rosé is priced at €4.50 a bottle—cheaper than water in many London restaurants.

British visitors usually arrive with the Ryanair-Stansted-to-Valencia route, then collect a hire-car for the ninety-minute drive inland. Motorways end at Motilla del Palancar; after that you’re on the CM-310, a perfectly smooth road where you’ll meet more combine harvesters than hatchbacks. Petrol is cheaper than in the UK, but fill up before Sunday—most rural stations close at 2 p.m. and don’t reopen until Monday.

What You’ll Eat (and When You Won’t)

Sisante keeps Spanish meal times, not British ones. Breakfast happens at 10, lunch at 3, dinner theoretically at 9 but many kitchens run later. If you appear at 12:30 hoping for a sandwich you will be offered a bag of crisps and a raised eyebrow. The only bar that opens continuously is Bar Central on Calle Mayor; they do a respectable tostada with crushed tomato and a drizzle of local arbequina oil for €1.80.

For something more substantial, Restaurante La Vega on the main road serves gazpacho manchego (a hearty game-and-pasta stew, not the cold tomato soup) and cordero al horno that arrives as four ribs clinging to a miniature rack. A portion feeds two; ask for “sin grasa” if you dislike lamb fat. House wine is from Villarrobledo and costs €2.20 a glass—pourable, faintly tasting of cherries and iron. Vegetarians survive on pisto manchego, a thick ratatouille topped with a fried egg; vegans should plan self-catering.

On Mondays culinary life collapses. The bakery shuts, the butcher boards up, and only La Vega stays open for lunch. Arrive with supplies or prepare to drive twenty minutes to the Consum supermarket in Quintanar del Rey.

Walking Off the Calories (and the Silence)

The council has way-marked two short circuits. The 7 km “Ruta de la Vega” loops through olive groves and along a dry riverbed where bee-eaters nest in May. It’s flat, unsigned in places, but you can see the church tower at all times—navigation by landmark rather than map. The longer “Ruta de las Escuelas” (12 km) drifts across the plateau to an abandoned 1950s schoolhouse covered in faded republican slogans. Carry water; there is no café at the halfway point and shade is limited to the width of your shadow.

Serious hikers sometimes continue south towards the Cañada Real Conquense, an ancient drovers’ trail that once funnelled merino sheep to winter pastures. These days you share it with mountain bikers and, in October, hunters stalking boar. Wear high-visibility clothing during shooting season; Spanish health and safety is refreshingly relaxed, but a fluorescent vest costs €4 and buys peace of mind.

Fiestas, Fireworks and the Politics of Pork

Mid-August is Fiesta Mayor. The population triples as grandchildren return from Valencia and Madrid. Brass bands march at midnight, fireworks detonate outside bedroom windows, and the council installs a temporary funfair whose dodgems drown out the church bells. Accommodation disappears; book six months ahead or stay in Cuenca and drive in for the day.

Late September honours the Cristo de la Humildad with marginally smaller crowds and marginally better brass sections. Both fiestas climax in a community paella cooked over vine prunings in the football field; locals bring their own chairs and spoons. Visitors are welcome, but you’ll be expected to donate €5 to the organising committee and compliment the chef’s socarrat (the prized burnt base).

Winter retains the tradition of matanza: families slaughter a pig, then spend three days making chorizo, salchichón and morcilla. The process is not staged for tourists; ask permission before photographing blood being stirred with cinnamon in a village garage. Most households will sell you a string of sausages for cash—expect to pay €15 a kilo, vacuum-packed if you beg.

Practical Notes Without the Bullet Points

Sisante has one cash machine, attached to the Cajamar branch on Plaza de España. It runs out of money on Friday evenings when the wine cooperatives pay their growers. Bring euros or use the supermarket in Quintanar which reliably refunds up to €50 on cards.

Public transport exists on paper. A bus leaves Cuenca at 07:15, reaches Sisante at 08:40, and returns at 14:00—perfect if you fancy a six-hour visit and a picnic. Otherwise hire a car; automatics are scarce, so brush up on manual gears or risk a free upgrade to a white-van-with-dents.

Accommodation is mostly Airbnb. “Happy Street” apartment sleeps four, has fibre-optic broadband faster than most Cotswold cottages, and costs £65 a night even in fiesta week. Host Marisol leaves a bottle of her uncle’s wine in the fridge and instructions in Google-translated English. The nearest hotel is twenty minutes away in a former olive mill; charming, but you lose the ability to step outside and buy a 30-cent custard tart at 8 a.m.

Mobile coverage is patchy in the countryside—Movistar works, Vodafone drifts, EE roaming defaults to Spanish Orange and behaves. Download offline maps before you set off on walks; signposts occasionally rotate in high wind.

Worth It?

Sisante will not hand you a tick-list of world heritage sites or Instagram backdrops. What it offers is rhythm: bread delivered before sunrise, wine at vineyard prices, and night skies dark enough to remind you that the Milky Way is not a chocolate bar. Go in spring when the almonds blossom, or in October when the air smells of pressed grapes and wood smoke. Don’t go if you need museums, nightclubs, or someone who speaks fluent estuary English. Treat it as a place to practise slow Spanish, fast walking, and the increasingly British art of doing very little—only here, the sun actually shines while you do it.