Huertahernando

The bell in Huertahernando's stone tower strikes noon, and for a moment the only reply is the wind scraping across the paramera. At 1,150 metres, this is one of the highest villages in Castilla-La Mancha, high enough that even summer nights drop below 15 °C and winter snow can cut the road for days. Fifty souls live here permanently—fewer than the sheep grazing the surrounding plateaux—yet the place refuses to feel abandoned. Adobe walls have been freshly limed, geraniums blaze on balconies, and someone has chalked the next fiesta date on a door.

The Arithmetic of Silence

Drive east from Guadalajara for 150 km and the A-2 motorway empties into the CM-2105, a single-lane streak of tarmac that corkscrews up to the village. The last petrol pump is at Molina de Aragón, twenty kilometres back; fill up or risk a very quiet wait. There is no bus, no taxi rank, no Uber. Mobile reception flickers out two kilometres before the stone arch that marks the entrance, a fact the village bank—open Thursday mornings only—accepts with Iberian stoicism.

What you get in exchange is horizon. In every direction the land rolls out like a parchment: wheat stubble, thyme scrub, the occasional juniper twisted into a question mark by the wind. On clear days the marble quarries of Albarracín glint 60 km south-west; at dusk the Sierra de Pela turns bruise-purple and the sky performs a slow, deliberate fade from orange to indigo. Light pollution is so minimal that the Milky Way appears not as a poetic idea but as a blunt stripe across the sky.

Stone, Mud and Memory

Huertahernando’s houses are built from what lay to hand: granite for the lower courses, adobe brick above, roofs of Arabic tile weighted down with stones. Many still carry the iron rings once used to tether mules; others have medieval shields carved above doorways, half-erased by centuries of wind-blown grit. The parish church, whose tower serves as both spiritual and meteorological beacon, contains a 17th-century retablo gilded with the kind of exuberance Spain reserved for remote places. Step inside during choir practice—Fridays at seven—and you will hear eight voices filling the nave with a volume that belies their number.

Outside, the streets are barely two metres wide. They were designed for livestock, not cars; park on the edge and walk in. The only vehicle likely to pass is the weekly bread van, horn tooting at ten sharp. Groceries require a drive to Corduente, 12 km west, where the chemist and the butcher share a single counter and close for siesta between two and four.

Walking the Paramera

Maps are optimistic here: footpaths marked on paper dwindle into sheep tracks within minutes. That is no disaster—the terrain is open, the gradients gentle, and the risk of getting irretrievably lost is close to zero if you keep the village tower in sight. A circular tramp south to the abandoned hamlet of Las Dehesas takes ninety minutes; you will pass stone-walled shepherds’ huts, threshing circles carved into the rock, and carpets of lavender that release a camphor punch when crushed under boot.

Spring arrives late and brief. By mid-April the plateau erupts into colour: purple viper’s bugloss, yellow flax, white chamomile. Temperatures hover around 18 °C by day but plunge after sunset; pack a fleece even in May. Autumn is the mirror image—warm days, frosty nights—and the grain stubble turns the landscape the colour of burnt toast. Summer is dry and breezy; August tops 30 °C at midday but the air thins enough to make hiking comfortable if you start early. Winter is serious: expect snow from December to March, and carry chains if you plan to drive. The Hostal El Corralón keeps its wood-burner stoked and will lend Wellington boots if the courtyard drifts.

What to Eat When Nobody Sells Food

Huertahernando has no restaurant, no bar, no shop. Self-catering is compulsory unless you are staying at the hostal, where Conchi cooks dinner on request—twenty euros for three courses, wine included. Expect migas: breadcrumbs fried with garlic, chorizo and grapes, a dish invented to use up stale bread and perfect after a windy walk. If you are renting a cottage, the Sunday market in Molina de Aragón sells local lamb (€14/kg), Manchego aged for twelve months, and foraged chanterelles when the weather is kind. Bring spices from home; village pantries stock little beyond salt, paprika and bay leaves.

Water, at least, is plentiful. A stone fountain at the lower end of the village flows with mountain spring water so cold it makes teeth ache. Locals queue to fill plastic jugs; visitors who arrive with single-use bottles earn polite, pitying smiles.

When the Village Comes Home

On the last weekend of August the population quadruples. Emigrants who left for Madrid, Barcelona or Zaragoza in the 1960s return with grandchildren, deck chairs and cool boxes. The church square hosts a mass followed by a communal paella cooked in a pan two metres wide; someone produces a guitar, someone else a sack of late-night fireworks. By Monday morning the square is swept, the geraniums watered, and silence reclaims the paramera until Christmas, when a smaller reunion repeats the ritual under fairy lights powered by a rattling generator.

Practicalities Without a Manual

Accommodation is limited:

• Hostal El Corralón – six rooms, shared terrace, Conchi’s cooking. €55 double B&B.
• Casa Rural Gerardo – self-catering cottage for four, wood burner, no Wi-Fi. €80 per night.

Both book up months ahead for fiesta weekend; mid-week in February you can turn up unannounced.

Driving from Madrid Barajas takes 2 h 15 m; allow extra if you stop for coffee in sleepy Sigüenza. Petrol stations accept UK cards, but keep €20 in cash for the automated pumps after midnight. There is no ATM in Huertahernando; the nearest is inside the Molina fortress gate, guarded by a cat of regal indifference.

Phone signal returns if you climb the low hill behind the cemetery—locals call it “WhatsApp point”. Stand on the third gravestone from the left, face north, and hope for one bar.

Leave the village as you found it: quietly. Roll the car downhill before starting the engine, close gates behind you, and resist the urge to take a souvenir stone. The wind is already writing tomorrow’s chapter across the plateau; the least we can do is let it finish the sentence.