Peralejos de las Truchas

The trout are the first clue. They appear within minutes of leaving the village square, holding station in glass-clear water the colour of prosecco, backs freckled like a Burns night haddock. No-one put them there for tourists; the fish have simply never been displaced, which tells you most of what you need to know about Peralejos de las Truchas: 1 181 m above sea level, thirty-six kilometres from the nearest ATM, and stubbornly alive.

High-altitude living

Drive south-east from Molina de Aragón on the CM-2106 and the pine woods tighten around the road. Stone houses with timber balconies start to shoulder together, their roofs pitched steep enough to shrug off winter snow that can cut the village off for a day or two most years. Inside the single grocery shop—open 09:00-14:00, 17:00-20:00 except Sunday—lamb is sold by the quarter and the cheese fridge is labelled simply “de la zona”. If you need cash, you are officially out of luck; the card machine works most days, but the owner keeps a manual imprinter under the counter for when the signal drops back to 3G.

Altitude changes everything. Even in July the night air drops to 12 °C, so the stone houses hold onto their fireplaces. Central heating arrived late and electrical contractors are still regarded with polite suspicion. The result is a village that smells of resin and wood-smoke rather than diesel, and a summer climate cool enough to make walking pleasant, provided you start before the sun clears the ridge.

Following water

The name means “trout place” for good reason. The upper Tagajo—little Tajo—slides past the north edge of the village in a succession of pools deep enough for a swim if you don’t mind 16 °C water. Follow the track downstream for ten minutes and you reach Los Callejones, a gorge narrowed to two arm-spans by iron-red conglomerate walls. Kingfishers use the overhangs as lookout posts; the only human addition is a single hand-painted sign: “No fires. Take your tins.”

Maps handed out by the ayuntamiento mark four circular walks. The shortest, Senda de la Vega, is 4 km and flat enough for trainers. The longest hauls itself up to the Cueva de los Casares (12 km return, 550 m ascent) where a replica of a Palaeolithic bison herd sits inside the entrance. Waymarking is scruffy—yellow dashes on pine trunks—but the routes are obvious if you remember the golden rule: keep the river on your left on the way out, on your right coming back. Between October and March the paths double as wild-boar highways; prints the size of a coffee saucer appear overnight in the mud.

What lands on the plate

Peralejos does not do tasting menus. Lunch, served at 14:30 sharp, is mountain fuel. Order trucha a la plancha and you receive a whole fish, backbone already cut so the flesh lifts off in two neat segments. It tastes of nothing but river water and butter—delicate, reassuringly un-fishy for anyone traumatised by supermarket trout. Lamb comes as cordero asado: shoulder slow-cooked in a wood-fired bread oven until the rim of fat turns to salty toffee. The local accompaniment is migas—fried breadcrumbs tossed with slivers of pancetta and a whisper of sweet paprika. Think stuffing, but with crunch.

Vegetarians get a shorter straw. The set-lunch menu at Bar La Sierra offers “ensalada mixta” or “setas de temporada” depending on what the forager brings in. Mushroom hunters are serious here: permits are checked by forest guards and over-filling a basket can earn a €300 fine. If you’re invited to tag along, accept—then remember every boletus you pick must be inspected by someone who actually knows what they are doing.

When the village remembers it’s a village

For forty-nine weeks of the year Peralejos hums at whisper volume. The other three belong to fiestas. Around 15 August the population quadruples as grandchildren arrive from Madrid and Zaragoza. Brass bands rehearse at 10:00, processions squeeze down lanes barely two metres wide, and the swimming holes echo with music until the early hours. Book accommodation early—there are only thirty-five tourist beds and half are snapped up by returning families.

The quieter celebration is San Blas on 3 February. Morning mass is followed by a blessing of throats—useful after breathing freezing night air—then the village shares a caldillo, a broth of chickpea, morcilla and whatever game the hunters bring in. Visitors are handed a bowl without asking; refusal is taken as personal insult.

Winter versus summer

Snow arrives unpredictably, sometimes as early as Hallowe’en. The CM-2106 is gritted, but the link road to Checa (the back-route towards Teruel) is not. A four-wheel-drive is prudent between December and March, and snow chains are compulsory equipment—Guardia Civil patrols carry spot checks. On the plus side, January delivers mirror-calm days when the only sound is the crack of ice shifting on the river. Spring, from late April, is the photographic season: wild cherry blossoms against black pine, and the first trout rises sending concentric rings across the pools.

August is hot in the sun—32 °C at midday—but shade is never far away and the water stays cold. British school-holiday visitors consistently report fewer crowds than the Lake District on a bank-holiday weekend, but the village is no longer undiscovered; you will share the best pools with Spanish families and the occasional French motorhome. May and late September give the best compromise: warm days, sharp nights, and almost guaranteed silence after 21:00.

Leaving without regret

Peralejos won’t change your life. It has no Michelin stars, no souvenir emporia, no sunset viewpoint thronged with influencers. What it offers is continuity: trout in the same pools that fed shepherds in the 1920s, bread baked in the same wood oven since 1963, and a night sky so dark you can watch satellites flare without leaving your balcony. Bring boots, cash and a tolerance for early lunches; take away pine-scented laundry, river-cold photos, and the realisation that “rural Spain” still exists—it just doesn’t shout about it.