Saelices de la Sal

The village appears at 983 m just as the A-2 motorway thins into a single-lane county road. One moment you are counting kilometres to Zaragoza, the next the tarmac coils uphill and stone houses shoulder together against a wind that smells of thyme and cold iron. Forty-eight residents, one church, no cash machine, and a salt story that predates the Romans: that is the short version of Saelices de la Sal.

Salt that never saw the sea

The name misleads first-time visitors who picture white cubes drying beside a turquoise bay. The salt here was mined, panned and evaporated from briny springs that bubble 8 km south-west of the village. A short gravel spur (passable in a normal car, but watch the potholes) ends at a shallow basin where grey boards and rusted pumps still stand. Interpretation is minimal—one hand-painted sign, no ticket desk—yet the geometry of the ponds and the black rubber belts make a thirty-minute detour oddly photogenic. Pick up the free leaflet at Medinaceli’s tourist office beforehand; without context the ruins look like abandoned farm machinery rather than the economic engine that once paid for the stone balconies you notice later in the village proper.

Back in the settlement itself, the houses keep to a strict palette: oatmeal mortar, chestnut timber, terracotta arabesques baked in the local kiln. Nothing rises above two storeys because, above 1,000 m, winter gales would rip off anything fancier. The single church, Nuestra Señora de la Anunciación, is correspondingly modest—low tower, unadorned portal, interior whitewashed every spring whether it needs it or not. Step inside around 11 a.m. and the temperature drops a good five degrees; the stone flags exhale the chill of January even in July.

Walking without way-markers

Formal hiking trails stop at the municipal boundary, which is precisely why walkers use the village as a launch pad. Shepherds’ tracks still connect Saelices with Villar de Cobeta (9 km) and the collapsed railway station at Alhama de Molina (12 km). The gradients are gentle—this is plateau country, not the Picos—but the path dissolves into limestone scree without warning. OSMand or similar offline maps are essential; UK phone roaming flickers between “E” and nothing. Take water: the altitude and the dry air drain you faster than you expect, and the only public fountain runs only from Easter to October.

Dawn walks reward the early alarm. By 6:30 a.m. the sun lifts over the Moncayo ridge, flooding the cereal fields with a thin gold that photographers call “Castilian honey light”. Wild boar prints criss-cross the sandy stretches; golden eagles usually appear around 8 a.m. when the first thermals form. Back in the village for 9 a.m. you will have the single bar to yourself—time for churros if it is Sunday, otherwise a cortado and a slab of sponge-like sobao brought in from Sigüenza.

Lunch, siesta and the petrol puzzle

Food options are dictated by population maths. One permanent bar, one bakery that opens three mornings a week, zero supermarkets. The house special is cecina tostada: wafer-thin air-cured beef flash-grilled so the edges curl like Parma ham. Pair it with a torta de la Mancha sheep cheese—buttery, only slightly sheepy—and a glass of Valdejalón tempranillo; change from a ten-euro note feels almost apologetic. Portions are large; the prudent order one plate and share.

At 2 p.m. sharp the owner lowers the metal shutter. Siesta is non-negotiable, and the law that allows small towns to opt out of the standard Spanish opening hours is invoked with local pride. Fill the car before lunch: the nearest fuel is 25 km away in Medinaceli, the pumps close at 6 p.m. and the card machines sometimes refuse foreign chip-and-pin. If you arrive on a Sunday without petrol you will be hitching a lift at first light.

August explosion, winter hush

The village’s annual population graph looks like a heartbeat flat-liner with one sudden spike. On 15 August the fiesta patronal drags back emigrants, grandchildren and the curious from Madrid. Suddenly there are 300 people in the plaza, a sound system powered by a tractor’s alternator, and a paella pan two metres across. The church bell, silent for months, clangs until 3 a.m. Accommodation in the village itself—six apartments around a former chemist’s shop called La Boticaria—books up nine months ahead at €75 a night with a three-night minimum. Miss the window and you are commuting in from Sigüenza, 45 minutes down the HU-631.

Winter reverses the spectacle. Snow arrives by December and the final 4 km of road are gritted only after the school bus has priority. Daytime highs hover at 4 °C; night readings of –12 °C are routine. The upside is silence so complete you can hear the blood in your ears. Astro-photographers park on the ridge south of the cemetery; at 1,050 m and with zero light pollution the Milky Way looks three-dimensional. Just remember to bring snow chains—Google Maps will blithely suggest the “faster” N-II route even when the Guardia Real has closed it.

Honest verdict

Saelices de la Sal will never compete with Cuenca’s hanging houses or the Camino’s social buzz. It offers instead a calibration point for travellers who suspect that much of rural Spain now runs on theme-park time. Come if you want to walk without meeting anyone, if you like your history low-key and your nights genuinely dark. Come with a full tank, cash in your pocket and no expectation of souvenirs. Leave the churros too late and you will eat biscuits instead—but the eagles will still be circling, and the plateau wind will still taste of salt that never saw the sea.