Lagunaseca

The frost on the stone trough is still thick at eleven o’clock when the first tractor coughs into life. From any window in Lagunaseca you can watch the exhaust rise and dissolve into air so clear it feels thinner than it actually is. At 1,300 m the village sits level with the summit of Ben Nevis; the difference is that here people stay all year, stockpile firewood in September and measure distances in “how many bends” rather than kilometres.

Stone and Sky

Everything is built from the same grey-brown quartzite that ribs the surrounding sierra. Houses grow out of the slope, rooflines staggered like uneven teeth, their Arabic tiles weighted against a wind that can scrape the temperature to –15 °C. There is no ornamental ironwork, no pastel Andalusian wash; Lagunaseca is the colour of the mountain and therefore almost invisible until the final hairpin. That final bend is the 25th if you’ve come from Cuenca city, 70 km away on the CM-2106, a road that narrows to a single lane in the pine forest above Tragacete and where winter tyres are not macho bravado but basic common sense.

Inside the village the streets are barely two arm-spans wide. Wooden galleries, called corredores, project on the north side of each dwelling – practical porches for firewood, not architectural flourish. Peer over the hand-hewn rail and you’ll see the ground falling away into a ravine of Scots pine and sabina. The only public building of note is the parish church, its bell cast in 1764 and still rung by pulling a rope that emerges through a hole drilled in the southern wall. Mass happens twice a month; on other Sundays the priest drives up from Huélamo and may be delayed by snow.

Walking without Waymarks

Lagunaseca is not a place for boxed “activities”. What you do is walk, and the walking begins the moment you leave the threshold. A spider’s web of shepherd paths radiates into the paramera – high, wind-combed moorland where cattle graze between June and October. None of the routes is sign-posted in English; some aren’t even sign-posted in Spanish. Local farmers still use white stones laid on top of walls to indicate direction, an code older than the GR network. Follow the stones north-east and you’ll reach the ruins of a snow-well, nevero, where ice was once cut and sledges hauled down to Cuenca market. The round trip is 8 km and gains only 200 m, but the altitude makes it feel longer. Take water: the streams run dry from July onwards.

For a bigger day, continue past the nevero to the ridge of Cerro de San Pedro (1,768 m). On a clear afternoon – and most summer afternoons are clear – you can pick out the blue slit of the Entrepeñas reservoir 60 km south, while to the north the Iberian range piles up like bruised cardboard. Iberian ibex have been sighted here; more common are boot-sized prints that might belong to anything from wild boar to an overfed mastiff. Mobile reception is patchy, so leave an itinerary on the windscreen of your car or, better, tell someone in the village. The bar is called Casa Rural Felipa and doubles as the only accommodation; Juani, who runs it, will notice if you haven’t returned by nightfall.

When Winter Means It

Snow usually arrives between December and March, sometimes overnight. The CM-2106 is ploughed as far as the turning to Cañamares, after which you’re on your own. Chains are compulsory and the Guardia Civil will turn non-residents back if a front is forecast. Those who do reach the village are rewarded with a silence so complete that the crunch of raquettes sounds intrusive. Cross-country skiers sometimes circuit the frozen balsa (livestock pond) at dawn; red fox tracks stitch the surface before human ones arrive. There is no ski hire, no ticket office, no hot chocolate machine – only the knowledge that if you twist a knee, evacuation will be complicated and expensive.

Food that Doesn’t Need a Menu

Lagunaseca has no restaurant, no shop, no bakery. Self-catering is mandatory, which means shopping in Cuenca or Tragacete before you leave the valley. What the village does offer is ingredients if you know whom to ask. Knock on the green door opposite the church and Concha may sell you a shoulder of suckling lamb, milk-fed within ten kilometres and frozen in portions. In October her husband, Julián, appears at the plaza with a wicker basket of níscalos (saffron milk-caps) priced at €8 the kilo; he expects you to haggle, then refuses to drop the price. The local mushrooms need nothing more than olive oil, garlic and yesterday’s bread – all of which you must already possess.

The nearest place to eat out is El Cazador in El Pinal, 12 km down the valley towards Tragacete. Weekends only, phone ahead, and expect game stew thick enough to support a spoon upright. Vegetarians will survive on migas – fried breadcrumbs with grapes – but may sulk about it.

A Festival that Isn’t Advertised

On the third weekend of August the population swells from 55 to roughly 300. Former residents return from Madrid, Valencia, even Manchester, reopening houses shuttered since January. The fiesta programme fits on one sheet of A4 taped to the church door: Saturday mass followed by paella cooked in a pan two metres wide; Sunday procession, brass band borrowed from Fuentenava, and a dance that finishes when the generator runs out of petrol. There are no wristbands, no T-shirts, no Airbnb surcharges. If you happen to be staying, Juani will invite you to carry a chair to the plaza and will refuse payment for the beer she presses into your hand. The next morning Lagunaseca exhales and shrinks again, like a balloon losing air.

Getting There, Getting It Wrong

British visitors usually fly to Madrid, collect a hire car and reach Cuenca in ninety minutes on the A-40. From there the temptation is to stay on faster roads to Teruel or Valencia. Resist it. Turn north on the CM-2106 and allow two hours for the final 70 km; the sat-nav will promise 55 minutes, but it hasn’t met the goat herd that blocks the road at Los Tejares. Fill the tank in Tragacete – the village pump in Lagunaseca closed in 2008 and the next fuel is 35 km away. If you arrive after dark, headlights will pick out eyes reflected green from stone walls; these are feral cats, not wolves, but the instinct to lock the doors is sensible.

Accommodation is limited to Casa Rural Felipa (three doubles, one single, from €70 room-only). British guests have left polite five-star reviews mentioning “amazing stars” and “lovely host”; they omit the part where the shower temperature fluctuates when someone downstairs boils a kettle. Booking direct saves the 15 % commission that booking platforms add, but you’ll need Spanish or Google Translate because Juani’s English stops at “hello” and “goodbye”. Alternative beds exist in Tragacete 17 km away, a drive that feels longer after wine.

Worth the Effort?

Lagunaseca will never feature on a “Top Ten Cute Pueblos” list. It offers no souvenir fridge magnets, no sunset selfie platform, no craft gin distilled with local herbs. What it does provide is an unfiltered dose of high-altitude Spain: the creak of timber as houses cool at dusk; the smell of pine resin and mule dung; a night sky so dark that the Milky Way casts a shadow. Come prepared, come self-sufficient, and the village will return the favour by letting you listen to the sound of your own pulse at 1,300 metres.