Boniches

The road to Boniches climbs a thousand metres above the La Mancha plain, and with every bend the temperature drops another degree. By the time the stone houses appear through the pines, the baking heat of Cuenca city feels like a different province altogether. At this height—1,050 m according to the battered sign at the village entrance—summers stay mild enough to walk at midday, while winter can trap the 141 residents for days under snow that rarely reaches the lowlands.

Stone, Snow and Silence

Most visitors race past the turn-off on the CM-2108, bound for the better-known villages of the Serranía Baja. Those who swing left find a settlement that still builds its roofs at a 45-degree pitch and keeps firewood stacked chest-high against every gable. The architecture is practical rather than pretty: local quartzite walls, timber balconies deep enough to shelter a milk churn, and doorways capped with heavy lintels designed to bear the weight of a surprise blizzard. Even the church tower—its bells silent since the 1990s—looks more like a defensive keep than a place of worship.

Boniches never had walls, yet the place feels inward-looking. Streets narrow to the width of a single mule cart, then widen suddenly into tiny plazas where the only sound is the clank of a farmer’s ladder against an olive tree. Mobile reception flickers in and out; Google Maps shows a grey smudge. The village keeps its own rhythm, and travellers who expect constant connectivity tend to leave within an hour. Those who stay discover that the absence of pings and alerts is half the appeal.

Forest Trails and Fork-Lightning Views

Three way-marked footpaths leave from the upper edge of the village. The shortest—Sendero de la Fuente de la Teja—loops 4 km through reforested Scots pine and returns past a spring that still supplies the public wash-house. Mid-route, a basalt outcrop gives a straight-line view south across thirty kilometres of wheat and vineyards; on clear days the steel roofs of Alarcón glint like pinheads. The going is gentle, but even in May the wind can knife through a fleece, so pack a layer more than the forecast suggests.

Ambitious walkers can continue along the GR-66 footpath, which climbs another 400 m to the Cerro de San Felipe. The summit is only 8 km from the village square, yet the path feels wild: boar tracks scored in the red clay, griffon vultures turning overhead, and juniper bushes twisted into corkscrews by the Levante wind. In October the undergrowth flushes with saffron milk caps and trumpet-shaped níscalos; locals carry wicker baskets and knives with curved blades, but outsiders need a regional permit (€7 from the Cuenca forestry office) to legally collect so much as a single specimen.

Winter transforms the same trails into narrow white couloirs. Snow usually arrives between Christmas and Three Kings, and when it sticks the CM-2108 is the first road the snow-ploughs abandon. Chains become compulsory 12 km below the village, and the daily bus from Cuenca is replaced by a 4×4 taxi that runs only if three passengers pre-book. Photographers prize these days: the contrast between black pine trunks and untouched snowdrifts is dramatic, and the silence is so complete you can hear the wing-flap of a solitary raven half a valley away.

What Passes for a Menu

Food options are limited to two establishments. On the main square, Bar La Fuente opens at 07:00 for farmers’ breakfasts—strong coffee, thick toast rubbed with tomato, and a plate of chorizo that costs €3.50 whether you ask for it or not. They close when the last customer leaves, occasionally before lunch. Halfway down Calle Real, Casa Rural el Rodeno has the only restaurant licence: four tables, one waitress, and a handwritten menu that changes according to what the owner’s cousin shoots or grows. Expect morteruelo (a rich pâté of hare, pork liver and spices) served lukewarm in a clay dish, followed by cordero al estilo serrano—lamb slow-roasted with garlic and vinegar until the bones pull free. A three-course meal with wine rarely tops €18, but cash is essential; the card machine has been “broken since last winter”.

If neither is open, the nearest alternative is 17 km away in Villaverde y Pasaconsol, where the petrol-station café does a decent tortilla. Pack sandwiches unless you fancy the drive.

Where to Sleep (and Why You Might Not)

Accommodation totals nine rentable properties, all converted village houses. Apartamentos Turísticos El Fresno offers four studios with under-floor heating and small balconies that catch the morning sun; rates hover around €65 per night year-round, but weekend availability disappears when Cuenca families block-book for mushroom season. Casa Rural Mayorazgo sleeps eight around an open hearth big enough to roast a goat—practical in February, stifling in August. Bring slippers: stone floors are beautiful until 02:00, when the temperature indoors matches whatever it is outside.

There is no hotel, no reception desk, and no night porter. Keys are left in a coded box screwed to the doorframe; the code arrives by text if the signal holds. Checkout is “before the cleaning lady turns up,” usually 11:00, though she has been known to arrive early and strip the bed while you’re still in it.

Fiestas That Aren’t Advertised

The village’s biggest celebration happens during the second weekend of August, when emigrants return from Madrid and Valencia. A sound system appears in the square, plastic tables line the streets, and half a pig rotates over a fire lit by the mayor. Visitors are welcome but not catered for: if you want to eat, you’re expected to bring your own chair, your own cutlery, and—according to last year’s poster—your own plate. Fireworks start at 03:00 and finish when the supply runs out, usually dawn.

September’s religious procession is quieter: the statue of the Virgin is carried 400 m to the ermita while two elderly women ring hand-bells. The event is over in twenty minutes, after which everyone retreats indoors for cake and anisette. Tourists outnumber locals on that day only by accident.

Getting There, Getting Out

Cuenca lies 75 minutes away on the A-40 motorway; from there the CM-2108 twists uphill for 42 km. Petrol stations are scarce—fill up in San Clemente or risk pushing the final descent. There is no rail link; Monday-to-Friday buses leave Cuenca at 15:15 and return at 07:00 next morning, a timetable designed for schoolchildren rather than sightseers. Hiring a car is almost mandatory unless you fancy a 24-hour stay that begins and ends in the dark.

Leave time for the drive down. The viewpoint at kilometre 18 looks over a canyon where black vultures nest; late afternoon light turns the pine tops bronze, and the only traffic is a goatherd moving his flock along the verge. It is the sort of scene that makes you slow for a photograph, then slower still, until the engine is off and the windows are down and the temperature gauge drops another notch. That is when you realise Boniches has already done its selling: not with postcards or gift shops, but with the simple promise that, for a few hours, the clock on the dashboard no longer matters.