Castillejo-Sierra

The church bell strikes noon, yet nobody appears. Only a pair of red-legged partridges scuttle across the single street as the clang echoes off granite walls. At 988 m above sea level, Castillejo Sierra keeps its own timetable: daylight, weather and whatever the mountains decide.

Twenty-eight residents are listed on the padron, but on a weekday in March you will be lucky to meet half that number. The others are down in the olive groves, out with the goats, or simply keeping the door shut against the wind that barrels up from the Guadiana gorge. This is not abandonment; it is deliberate, generational thinning. People stay here because they have never needed the clutter of elsewhere.

Stone, Wind and the Smell of Pine

Every house is built from the hill it stands on. Schist walls two feet thick, timber hauled from the pinar up the track, roof tiles hand-baked in Villanueva de la Jara two centuries ago. The masonry is proud—no cement filler, just gravity and skill. Walk softly and you can hear the joints creak as temperatures swing fifteen degrees between dusk and dawn.

Outside the village the land drops away into forest: maritime pine, Portuguese oak, rosemary that smells sharper at altitude. There is no interpretive panel, no gift shop, only a finger-post reading “Castil de Tierra, 3 km” that might have been hammered in during the Second Republic. The path is still used by muleteers bringing down firewood; step aside and they will nod, surprised to see walking boots instead of country shoes.

Mobile coverage fades two hundred metres beyond the last cottage. By the time you reach the ruined watchtower—really a heap of Muslim-era stones overlooking the knife-cut valley—Google Maps shows a blank grey square. The silence is so complete you can identify individual bees by the pitch of their wings.

What Passes for High Season

April brings wild asparagus and the first nightingales. A few weekenders from Madrid appear, driving small dusty cars loaded with bicycles that cost more than a local annual wage. They speak in whispers, afraid to break something. By June the thermometers on the north wall read 38 °C by eleven o’clock; activity is measured in grams of shade. The village’s single fountain—installed 1924, flow rate 1.2 litres per second—becomes the social centre. Elderly men fill plastic jerry cans, then retreat indoors until dusk.

August fiestas swell the head-count to perhaps ninety. A sound system arrives from Cañamero, powered by a generator that stalls every time the bass drum hits. Teenagers who have spent the year in Valladolid or Barcelona reintroduce themselves in perfected Andalusian accents. At dawn on the final day the plaza is swept clean, the generator returned, and population reverts to statistical noise.

Winter is another country. The CC-21.2 access road ices over; council gritters treat it as low priority behind the bigger villages on the plain. When snow drifts against the church door, supplies come in by 4×4 or not at all. The temperature can touch –12 °C, impressive only 180 km from the Mediterranean. Firewood is currency; olive prunings are stacked under overhangs like bullion.

Eating Without a Menu

There is no café, no bakery, no vending machine. Self-catering is mandatory, which means a provisioning stop in Cañamero, 19 km west. The Dia supermarket closes for siesta 14:00-17:00 sharp; arrive at 14:05 and you will stare at metal shutters alongside German motor-homers who thought Spain ran on tourist time.

Back in the village, the communal barbecue beside the washing trough still functions: rough bricks, iron grill, river water in a plastic bucket. Local butchers (try Carnicería Diego in Guadalupe) sell chuletas of Iberian pork marbled enough to forgive amateur fire management. A packet of those, a lemon, cheap red wine from Villarrobledo: dinner under stars rated Bortle Class 3, the Milky Way a spilled seam across the sky.

If you crave being served, Thursday lunchtime is your window. Drive twenty-five minutes to the petrol-station bar at Embalse de la Serena; they do migas—fried breadcrumbs with garlic and chorizo—at €9 including a caña of beer. Eat quickly: they close when the truckers leave.

Walking on the Bones of an Ocean

The whole territory sits inside the Villuercas-Ibores-Jara UNESCO Global Geopark, which means the rocks under your boots were once Ordovician seabed, shoved skyward when Africa nudged Europe. Ammonite fossils litter the sheep tracks; pocket one and you have committed a minor felony, so photograph instead.

Routes are not way-marked; the council spent the signage budget replacing a retaining wall in 2017. Instead, download the free IGN sheet (MTN50-958) and trust contour lines. A circular from the fountain to the abandoned hamlet of Solana de Ávila and back is 11 km with 450 m of ascent; allow four hours because the path keeps dissolving into wild-boar rootlings. You will meet nobody, but prints in the mud tell of creatures that weigh more than you and move in families.

Carry two litres of water per person; the advertised “spring” on the map dried to a stain during the 2022 drought. Mid-September to late-October is the sweet spot: cool dawns, golden oaks, chanterelles pushing through leaf litter if the rains arrived on cue. Picking fungi is legal with a regional permit (€7.50 online), but locals exercise droit de seigneur over patches they have harvested since Franco’s days. Politeness costs nothing.

The Exit Tax

Leaving is harder than arriving. The road twists so tightly that fifth gear is theoretical; a Ford Focus rental will smell hot brakes by kilometre eight. Phone signal returns at the junction with the CM-410, an event announced by voicemail pings like coins dropped in a tin. You re-enter a world of petrol receipts and Spotify, already wondering if the dog that barked at dusk was real or imagined.

Castillejo Sierra offers no postcard moment, no boutique redemption. It is simply still there, resisting the narrative that every beautiful place must become convenient. Bring food, water, boots and time measured by sun, not agenda. Arrive modestly, leave quietly, and the village may still be unremarkable when you need it to be.