Chinchilla de Monte-Aragón

From the A-31 motorway, the castle appears first—a stone rectangle balanced 903 metres above the ochre plains, watching traffic streak between Madrid and Alicante. Most drivers glance up, register "something medieval," and accelerate onwards. Ten minutes off the slip-road, however, the tarmac shrinks to a single lane, the temperature drops a perceptible two degrees, and you find yourself at the base of a limestone outcrop that feels alarmingly like an island in a sea of wheat.

Climbing into the fifteenth century

Park at the motor-home aire by the cemetery; it's free, flat, and delivers the best long-lens shot of the fortress walls. From here every route is uphill. Calle Zapateros, the gentlest ascent, still demands calf muscles as cobbles taper into staircases barely two metres wide. Stone houses lean in, their wooden balconies almost touching overhead, so the sky becomes a blue ribbon that flickers between terracotta roof tiles.

Halfway up, the Iglesia de Santa María del Salvador blocks the street with its Gothic flank. Push the heavy door: inside, the air smells of incense and cold rock. A single volunteer sells €2 postcards from a folding table; light through alabaster windows stripes the nave in honey and chalk. Ten minutes is enough, but the silence encourages longer.

Round the corner the Plaza Mayor opens like a belated apology for the gradient. Arcaded on three sides, it's the size of a Oxford college quad and equally quiet after 14:00. Elderly men occupy benches in strict rotation; their wives shop for bread at Panadería San José before the shutters crash down for siesta. Order a coffee at Mesón de Paco and you will be asked "¿Con leche caliente o templada?"—milk temperature matters here.

Walls you can walk, a keep you can't

The Castillo de Chinchilla was built by the Moors, remodelled by the Marquises of Villena, then used variously as prison, powder store and weather station. Restoration funds arrive in dribs and drabs; the keep is permanently scaffolded and entry is by pre-booked tour only (€5, Saturdays at noon if the guide isn't ill). The exterior, though, is gloriously accessible. A complete circuit takes twenty minutes along the parapet path; swallowtail battlements frame 40 km of horizon in every direction.

To the north the plain stretches ruler-flat until it dissolves into summer heat haze. Southwards the land wrinkles into the Monte Ibérico, a low chain whose pine plantations appear midnight-blue against bleached cereal fields. Bring binoculars: on clear winter days you can pick out the wind turbines above Almansa 35 km away.

Life below street level

Chinchilla's signature curiosity lies underneath the houses. From the sixteenth century onwards residents quarried the soft limestone to create bodega-caves—constant 14 °C cellars for wine, grain and, during the Civil War, people. Many are still private; owners lift iron trapdoors in living-room floors and disappear down spiral stairs you would mistake for cupboards. The tourist office (opposite the church, open erratically) maintains a shortlist of families who will show their cave for €3 a head; ring the bell labelled "Museo subterráneo" and hope someone is in.

If nobody answers, stroll instead to Callejón de las Monjas where a row of white chimneys sprouts from the rock like oversized chess pieces. These ventilation shafts serve the largest public cave, La Torreta, open during fiestas or by nagging the caretaker in the town hall. Inside, the height of a church nave, the air tastes of damp chalk and last year's grapes.

When to come, what to pack

At 900 m the village escapes La Mancha's furnace summers; July afternoons peak at 32 °C rather than 38 °C, and nights drop to a sleep-friendly 18 °C. Winter is a different story: elevation funnels icy winds across the plateau, and the castle's stone corridors become horizontal fridges. January mornings can start at –4 °C; if the plain is cloud-covered, the place sits like an aeroplane above a cotton sea—spectacular, but bring wool.

Spring is the sweet spot. Mid-April turns surrounding fields emerald; poppies punctuate wheat in scarlet commas, and storks clatter on the church tower. Autumn repeats the trick in reverse, adding the smell of fresh olive oil from the cooperative on the outskirts.

Food that refuses to hurry

Lunch starts at 14:00 or not at all. Mesón de Paco's menú del día costs €14 and includes a clay dish of gazpacho manchego—nothing like Andalusian cold soup, this is hare and flatbread stew sharpened with pepper. Ask for "sin picante" if British palates object. The roast segureño lamb arrives in chunks rather than neat French cutlets; the meat is sweet, the skin crisp as bacon. Vegetarians get a baked aubergine smothered in local cheese: salty, sheepy, substantial.

House red from Almansa (€2.50 a glass) tastes of black cherry and is mercifully low in tannin—safe for driving if you stop at one. Pudding is usually bizcocho de Chinchilla, a sponge flavoured with lemon zest and designed for dipping. If the square feels too sleepy, walk two streets to Bar El Parque where the owner keeps a vintage slot machine and serves coffee in glass tumblers like a 1970s Madrid café.

Walking it off

A 15 km circular path, the Ruta del Bosque de las Palabras, starts behind the castle. Markers are white and yellow but sporadic; download the GPX before leaving town. The route drops through almond terraces, crosses a dry riverbed, then climbs again through aleppo pines where wild thyme releases scent underfoot. Allow four hours and carry water—there is none en route. Shorter option: follow the paved service track west for 25 minutes to an abandoned windmill. The view back to Chinchilla, walls glowing sandstone against black volcanic rock, explains why artists keep sketchbooks in car boots.

The catch

Evening entertainment is limited to a single cocktail bar and summer open-air cinema projected against the convent wall. British expectations of live music or craft-beer taps will be disappointed. Shops still close for three hours at lunch; ATMs run out of cash at fiesta weekends; if the castle guide phones in sick, the tour is simply cancelled. Accept these glitches as part of the package and the place rewards patience.

Leave before darkness if you're staying on the coast—the final 8 km of mountain road to the motorway is unlit and shared with the occasional wandering donkey. In the mirror the fortress recedes to a cut-out, windows flickering orange as villagers switch on lights. Below, the plain stretches empty, the castle still watching traffic that rarely stops.