Rillo de Gallo

The first thing you notice is the house that looks as though it’s melting. One man, two decades, no architectural training – just wheelbarrows of concrete and a dog-eared book on Antoni Gaudí. Locals call the creation El Capricho Rillano, and it is the reason most outsiders brake hard on the lonely GU-186, convinced their sat-nav has lost its mind. It hasn’t: the village of Rillo de Gallo really is up here, 1,055 m above sea level, with only forty-four residents and a horizon that smudges into the Sierra de Solorio.

A village that forgot to grow

Stone walls the colour of weathered parchment line lanes barely wider than a Tesco delivery van. Parking is simple: stop where the tarmac ends, pocket the key, and walk. There are no yellow lines because there is almost nothing to queue for – no bar, no shop, no public loo. What Rillo does have is altitude: nights stay cool even in July, and winter brings snow before you’ve finished your toast. The air is so clear that mobile reception gives up; download offline maps while you still have bars on the A-2.

The houses are pure upland Castile: thick masonry, tiny windows, Arab-tile roofs designed to shrug off Atlantic storms that ride in over the Meseta. Many sit empty; heirs moved to Zaragoza or Madrid decades ago and never came back. Swallows nest in cracked lintels, and the only year-round bustle comes from a farmer trundling a quad bike loaded with hay bales to a stone barn that still smells of thyme and saddle leather.

One man’s answer to Barcelona

Juan Antonio Martín finished his own cottage in 1998, looked at the blank gable end, and decided it needed curves. Twenty-three years later the wall has flowered into a fever dream of mosaic lizards, tree-trunk pillars and a chimney twisted like a corkscrew. The work is unfinished – bags of broken tiles wait under a tarp – but he’ll happily unlatch the gate if you knock politely. Tips are welcome; enthusiasm is currency. Inside, the staircase banister is a concrete vine that squeezes your hand like a living thing. There is no gift shop, no ticket booth, just the satisfaction of having seen something bonkers that no heritage body would ever commission.

Bear in mind: Juan Antonio speaks zero English. A phrase-book “¡Qué obra más original!” works wonders; asking if he’s related to Gaudí does not.

Walking without waymarks

Rillo sits on the watershed between the Tagus and Ebro basins; step one side of the ridge and water ends up in Lisbon, the other in the Mediterranean. A web of old shepherd paths radiates into sabine and oak woods, but don’t expect signposts – the route is whatever the goats haven’t eaten lately. A sensible circuit heads south for 4 km to the abandoned hamlet of Villar de Cobeta, where a roofless church still holds its bell in a cradle of ivy. Allow two hours there and back; the altitude hides in the lungs more than the legs.

Spring brings carpets of dwarf iris and the distant clonk of cowbells; October smells of damp leaf-litter and woodsmoke. In January the same track becomes a ski-less cross-country runway – bring micro-crampons or resign yourself to a sit-down descent.

What to eat when there’s nowhere to eat

The last commercial oven closed in the 1980s, so self-catering is obligatory. Stock up in Molina de Aragón (25 min drive) where the Condis supermarket sells local torta del casar cheese – runny, tangy, and nothing like the rubbery stuff back home. A loaf of pan de pueblo, a jar of Serrano honey, and tomatoes still warm from the greenhouse roof will cost under a tenner. Picnic tables sit under holm oaks at the village entrance; the view stretches south until the land folds into a haze that might be Cuenca or might be tomorrow.

If you crave hot food, drive to Molina for lunch at Asador de Aranda. Order cordero asado: whole shank of milk-fed lamb, slow-roasted in a wood-fired clay oven until the skin crackles like pork scratching. Half a kilo serves two hungry walkers; €24 per person including wine that tastes of blackberries and iron.

When the silence is the point

British hikers who barrel through on a “three villages before supper” itinerary usually leave within the hour, unnerved by the quiet. Stay until dusk and the place starts to work. Swifts give way to nightjars; the Milky Way appears with the urgency of a planetarium projector. Without light pollution the sky drops so low you feel you should duck. Bring a decent jacket – even August nights can dip to 10 °C – and a flask of something malted.

The village’s single fiesta erupts around 15 August, when emigrants return and the population swells to roughly 120. There’s a mass under a canvas awning, a communal paella cooked on orange-tree wood, and a disco run from the back of a Seat Toledo. Visitors are welcome but not pampered: bring your own chair and expect to wash up.

Getting here without tears

Fly to Madrid, collect a small hire car, and head north-east on the A-2. After Guadalajara the motorway empties; turn off at km 118 for Tamajón, then follow the GU-186 for 15 km of hairpins. Petrol stations thin out after Sigüenza – fill the tank and the windscreen washer. In winter carry snow chains; the road is ploughed but not salted. There is no bus, no taxi rank, no Uber. If the car breaks down, hope Domingo the sheep farmer is passing – he has the only tow bar for miles.

Leave early enough to be on the ridge before sunset. Rillo de Gallo will not change your life, but it might slow it down to a speed where the loudest sound is your own pulse, and the most pressing decision is whether to add another log to the picnic fire or simply watch the valley turn indigo and disappear.