Cañete

The bells of San Julián ring at 1 070 m above sea level, and the sound carries farther than mobile coverage. Stand on the castle’s broken rampart and you can watch the note roll across olive-coated ravines until it dissolves into the haze that hides Valencia, ninety minutes east by car. At this height the air is thin enough to make the uphill slog from the car park feel like mild altitude training; in July it is also ten degrees cooler than the baking plain below, which explains why the village’s 764 residents still cluster here rather than down on the motorway.

A Fortress that Outlived its King

Henry IV of Castile once slept in the keep, or so the plaque claims. What remains is a skeleton of ochre stone: two towers, a fragment of curtain wall, and enough loose rubble to turn sturdy walking shoes into a sensible idea. Entry is free, the gate never closes, and the only safety barrier is common sense. Climb the larger tower at sunset and the view stretches south to the charcoal ridge of the Sierra de Alcaraz; look north and the A-3 cuts a grey ribbon across the meseta, reminding you that the modern world is close enough for a Ryanair flight home on Tuesday.

The castle interior is shuttered on Mondays—something British weekenders often discover too late—so plan a Tuesday-to-Sunday arc if you want to poke around the vaulted storerooms that once held grain for the Order of Calatrava. Even locked, the ruin is worth the zig-zag path; buzzards use the thermals overhead, and the wind whistles through arrow slits like a historical sound effect.

Stone Streets Built for Donkeys, Not Discovery

Inside the walls the medieval street plan survives intact, which means gradients of one-in-four and alleys barely the width of a SEAT Ibiza. Visitors who leave their hire car at the top gate are rewarded with a traffic-free wander; those who trust the sat-nav to “Plaza Mayor” usually meet a local pensioner who wordlessly points at the reverse gear. The cobbles are smooth, the drainage channel down the middle is original, and the overhanging balconies almost touch, giving noon-time shade that keeps summer temperatures tolerable.

Start at the Arco de la Villa, the only surviving gate, and follow Calle Real past the Casa del Mayorazgo, its façade still wearing a 16th-century coat of arms chipped by centuries of sleet. The church of San Julián stands halfway up the hill, Romanesque bones clothed in later Gothic dress. Inside, the retablo glitters with gilt paint rather than real gold—an honest reflection of a parish whose budget has always been agricultural. Mass is at 11:00 Sunday; turn up ten minutes early and you can hear the organ wheeze into life, an atmospheric overture that costs nothing.

Lunch at Height: Calories You Will Immediately Burn Off

By 13:30 the village’s two proper restaurants flip their signs to abierto. Both occupy ground floors of stone houses whose doorways are six inches lower than modern British heads. Mesón la Cuesta serves gazpacho pastor—a thick mutton-and-bread stew that tastes like shepherd’s cottage pie with paprika—while Bar el Castillo specialises in caldereta de cordero, falling-off-the-bone lamb that justifies the €14 price tag. Vegetarians get pisto manchego, a Spanish ratatouille that arrives in an individual clay pot still bubbling. House wine is from Valdepeñas; at €2.20 a glass it costs less than the bottled water at Manchester Airport.

Puddings are heavy on almonds and local honey. Order té and you will receive a cup, a tea bag still in its wrapper, and a stare that asks why anyone wants a hot drink when it is 35 °C outside. Coffee, correctly, is espresso unless you plead for café con leche.

Walking Tracks that Start at the Back Door

From the last row of houses a stony track continues uphill into pinewoods. Within fifteen minutes the village looks like a brown crust on the ridge behind you. The signed PR-CU 52 circuit is a 9 km loop through holm oak and umbrella pine to an abandoned cortijo; allow three hours and carry water because the only bar is the one you just left. Spring brings wild tulips and the smell of thyme; after October the undergrowth turns crisp and fire-risk signs appear—this is when the Sierra blushes terracotta and the air smells of woodsmoke from farmers burning pruning’s.

Shorter option: follow the dirt road south-east for twenty minutes to the Ermita de la Soledad, a whitewashed chapel with a bell the size of a flowerpot. The benches outside face west; evening light hits the stone and turns it apricot, a photographer’s moment that needs no filter.

When to Come, and When to Stay Away

April–May and late-September–October give daytime highs of 22 °C, cool nights, and clear skies sharp enough to spot the ISS passing overhead. July and August are ten degrees hotter on the ridge, but still busy with Spanish families occupying second homes; finding a parking space after 11 a.m. becomes a competitive sport. Winter is quiet—sometimes too quiet. Snow falls two or three times a season and melts quickly, but the castle path turns into an ice chute and the single hotel closes for maintenance in January. Book only if you fancy atmospheric solitude and self-catering; the village shop opens two mornings a week.

Beds, Bills, and Getting Out Again

Accommodation is limited. Hotel Castillo de Cañete has fourteen rooms carved out of a 17th-century manor; ask for the south-facing second-floor chamber and you wake to sunrise over the gorge (doubles €75, breakfast €7). British-run Casa Rural La Tercia sleeps six in thick-walled rooms with English-language tourist board leaflets and a kitchen that actually contains a kettle—rarer than you think in Castilla-La Mancha. Budget option Posada de Cañete offers clean doubles at €45, but weekend moto-groups sometimes fire up their engines at dawn.

Public transport is academic: one bus a day to Cuenca, none on Sunday. Fly to Valencia, collect a car, and you are on the ridge in ninety minutes; Madrid airport adds an extra forty-five. Petrol stations on the A-3 are plentiful, yet fill up before leaving the motorway—the next pump after the CM-210 exit is thirty kilometres away.

The Honest Verdict

Cañete delivers half a day of medieval stone, sweeping views, and hearty country food that costs less than a London sandwich. It is not a life-changing destination, and anyone expecting craft breweries or yoga retreats will leave underwhelmed. What it does offer is a place where the castle is still a ruin rather than a ticketed attraction, where the mayor doubles as the barman, and where the night sky is dark enough to remind you why constellations were once important. Arrive with sensible shoes, a Spanish phrasebook, and an appetite, and the village repays you with the sort of unvarnished authenticity marketing departments spend millions trying to fake.