Selas

The church bell tolls twice. Nobody appears. A dog barks somewhere beyond the stone houses, then thinks better of it. At 1,252 metres above sea level, even summer nights in Selas demand a jumper, and the village's forty-odd permanent residents have long since learned that noise is a currency they can't afford to spend.

This is Spain stripped of flamenco and fiestas, a place where the loudest sound is often your own breathing. Perched on the shoulder of the Sistema Ibérico, Selas sits within the Alto Tajo Natural Park, a protected swathe of Guadalajara province where golden eagles circle above juniper-clad plateaux and the nearest traffic light is forty kilometres away. The village represents everything modern Spain has been running from: isolation, manual labour, and a social life measured in generations rather than Instagram followers.

What remains when everyone leaves

The architecture tells its own story. Houses huddle together like survivors of some long-forgotten siege, their Arab-tiled roofs pitched steep against winter snow that can cut the village off for days. Walls of local stone, thick enough to keep July heat at bay, bear witness to a time when builders worked with what the earth provided and insulation came from proximity rather than technology. Windows are small, doors are sturdy, and every dwelling seems to turn its back on the prevailing wind that sweeps across the paramo.

Walking the single main street takes six minutes if you dawdle. There's no bar for a morning cortado, no shop for emergency cigarettes, no petrol pump for the forgetful driver. What Selas offers instead is absence: no light pollution to dim the Milky Way, no mobile signal to interrupt thought, no queue for anything whatsoever. The village operates on agricultural time, where seasons matter more than hours and the only rush comes during August's fiesta, when emigrants return and the population temporarily swells to perhaps a hundred.

The landscape that time forgot

Beyond the houses, the territory stretches wild and mostly empty. Sabinar forests of Spanish juniper cling to slopes where Iberian ibex pick their way between limestone outcrops. Autumn transforms nearby oak woods into a photographer's playground, though catching the colour requires planning—the trees turn quickly at this altitude, and one week's spectacle becomes next week's mulch underfoot.

Hiking trails follow ancient paths that once connected scattered hamonies across the Señorio de Molina comarca. Walkers might cover ten kilometres without meeting another soul, though wild boar tracks cross the route regularly and griffon vultures provide aerial company. The GR-86 long-distance path passes within striking distance, offering multi-day possibilities for those who've remembered to pack everything they need—there's no outdoor shop for forgotten water bottles here.

Winter brings its own character. Snow can arrive as early as October and linger into April, transforming the village into something resembling a Pyrenean settlement rather than Castilian upland. Access becomes genuinely problematic; the CM-2105 from Molina de Aragón features enough hairpins to test confident drivers, and chains become essential rather than advisory. Yet the reward is a silence so complete that falling snow provides the soundtrack, and footprints in fresh powder remain undisturbed for days.

Practicalities for the determined visitor

Reaching Selas requires commitment. Madrid's Barajas airport sits two and a half hours away by hire car, with the final forty minutes navigating roads that grow progressively narrower and less forgiving. Public transport simply doesn't exist—the nearest bus stop in Checa might as well be on another planet once you've discovered there's no taxi service to complete the journey.

Accommodation comes down to one option: Eras Altas, three self-catering apartments carved from agricultural buildings where owners Pilar and Miguel have learnt to anticipate British needs. They'll explain the coffee maker, provide UK-to-Spanish plug adapters, and crucially, warn about restaurant timing in a region where kitchens close at four and reopen at nine. Their pool, open June through September, offers respite from summer heat that still reaches thirty degrees despite the altitude, though evenings inevitably require that jumper.

Food presents particular challenges. The village itself offers nothing commercial whatsoever—no café, no bakery, no Sunday-morning churros. Self-catering becomes essential unless you've arranged dinner at Eras Altas, where Miguel's roast lamb competes with any found in Segovia, though portions reflect rural generosity rather than metropolitan restraint. Molina de Aragón, twenty-five minutes away, provides supermarkets and a surprising Chinese restaurant, while local specialities like migas pastoriles (fried breadcrumbs with chorizo and grapes) taste better than they sound to British ears.

When silence isn't golden

The very qualities that attract can quickly overwhelm. Three days without conversation tests even committed introverts, and the lack of mobile signal shifts from liberation to anxiety when the car develops an unexplained rattle. Weather changes rapidly at altitude—morning mist can obscure the village entirely by breakfast, and what began as a gentle stroll becomes a navigation exercise in cloud.

August's fiesta week transforms everything, though not necessarily for the better. What passes for peace becomes a different kind of noise entirely, as returning families fire up quad bikes and late-night music drifts across the valley. Accommodation books solid twelve months ahead, and the Observatory of Silence—yes, Selas features such a thing—records decibel levels that would appall its February readings.

Yet these frustrations miss the point. Selas doesn't exist for tourism; it survives despite everything contemporary Spain values. The village represents a lifestyle choice most British visitors will never need to make, where community means sharing resources rather than Wi-Fi codes, and where the landscape dictates human behaviour rather than vice versa. Come for the silence, stay for the stars, leave before the isolation becomes too appealing.