Saceruela

The church bell strikes noon and the only other sound is a tractor grinding up the hill. From the tiny plaza you can see every roof in Saceruela—white walls, terracotta tiles, a few solar panels—and beyond them the sweep of oak scrub that stretches to the horizon. This is Castilla-La Mancha stripped of windmills and tour buses: 500 souls living at 585 m on a forgotten fold of the Montes de Toledo, half an hour’s drive from the nearest small town and light-years away from the Costas.

A village that refuses to hurry

The single road in passes the stone bull-ring, built 1896 and still used once a year, then narrows to a cobbled lane barely wider than a Bedford van. Park here; no-one will mind. Houses are set gable-end to the street so their patios catch the winter sun; doors stand open, releasing the smell of wood smoke and frying garlic. There is no ticket office, no interpretation centre, no craft shop. If you want a souvenir, the lady selling eggs from her garage will rinse out a jam jar so you can carry them home intact.

San Pedro Apóstol, the 16th-century parish church, anchors the western edge. Its tower is square, workmanlike, the stone softened by lichen rather than restoration grants. Inside, a dusty banner lists the men who left to work in the Mercedes plant in Germany during the 1970s; their remittances paid for the roof. The retablo is modest—no gold leaf, just carved poplar painted in oxides that have faded to tobacco brown. Light a candle if you wish: €1 in the box, matches tied to the grille with garden twine.

Walking without waymarks

Official hiking routes stop at the municipal boundary, and that is the point. Shepherds’ tracks radiate into the dehesa, the open oak pasture that still underwrites the local economy. One path drops east to the seasonal stream of Cañamares; another climbs south to the ridge called Cerro de la Horca, gaining 200 m in forty minutes. Spring brings rockrose and lavender; by July the same ground is iron-red dust and grass the colour of wheat biscuits. Bootprints are your only company—plus the occasional griffon vulture sliding overhead on metre-wide wings.

Bring water, more than you think. The dryness is deceptive: Atlantic weather systems stall against these hills, so afternoon storms can arrive even in September. A light jacket weighs little and saves much. Mobile reception vanishes within a kilometre; drop a pin at the last junction if you need collecting later. Mushroom hunters descend after the first October rains; without local knowledge stick to photographing saffron milk-caps rather than sautéeing them.

One bar, no ATMs, honest food

Lunch options are refreshingly limited. Bar La Parada opens at 07:00 for farm workers and stays open as long as someone is drinking. Coffee is €1.20, caña 80 c, and the handwritten menu offers what the owner’s sister felt like cooking: migas with grapes on Thursdays, partridge stew on Saturdays. Vegetarians can usually be accommodated with pisto manchego—just ask for “sin jamón”. Payment is cash only; the nearest cashpoint is in Almadén, 19 km of twisting CM-412. Fill your wallet before you arrive.

Those staying overnight eat mainly in their casa rural. Half-board is the norm: expect gazpacho pastor (a hearty lamb-and-bread soup), caldereta de cordero mellowed with saffron, and queso manchego that tastes of thyme because the sheep actually graze on it. House wine is an Airén from 60 km north; at 12.5% it drinks more like a southern French vin de pays than the oaky monsters British supermarkets label “Spanish white”. Pudding is often churros with local honey—less greasy than the chocolate version, easier on the waistband.

When the fiesta starts, the village doubles

The feast of San Pedro, 28–30 June, is the social highlight. Emigrants return from Madrid, Barcelona, even Milton Keynes, inflating numbers to roughly a thousand. A sound system appears in the plaza, balanced precariously on palettes; teenage cousins who haven’t met since last summer compare notes on GCSE grades and Spanish university entrance tests. Midnight brings a procession: the statue of the saint is carried round the lanes, paused at each corner so fireworks can be let off dangerously close to the dry thatch. Visitors are welcome but there are no grandstands: stand behind the water trough and you’ll be handed a plastic cup of rebujito anyway.

August holds the simpler fiesta de sopeteo: football tournament, foam party for children, communal paella cooked in a pan the size of a satellite dish. Semana Santa is quieter—no brass bands, just a single drum and women in black lace whispering the responses. Photography is tolerated if you remain at the back; flash is bad form.

Honest drawbacks

Saceruela is not for everyone. Public transport is theoretical: one bus a week links to Ciudad Real on market day, returning the same afternoon. Without a car you are stranded. Summer heat regularly tops 35°C; the only reliable shade is inside the church or your rented bedroom. Wi-Fi exists but creaks under the load when three guests stream Match of the Day highlights. If it rains heavily the approach road washes out; carry supplies and wait for the grader.

And the village is small. An energetic walker can survey every street in fifteen minutes. After that, entertainment is self-generated: read a book, listen to the nightjars, argue about the optimum route to the next hill. Teenagers implode with boredom within two hours; toddlers, however, love the freedom to roam while parents finish a glass of wine.

Leaving without promising to return

Most visitors slot Saceruela into a circular tour—Córdoba to Toledo via the back roads—spending one night, maybe two. That feels about right. Stay longer and you start recognising dogs by name; stay shorter and you leave with the sense of something unfinished. Drive out at dawn and the rising sun turns the oak trunks copper; a red deer may watch from the verge before melting into the scrub. There is no souvenir shop because the view is the souvenir, and it doesn’t fit in hand luggage.