Pajarón

The church bells strike noon, and for a moment the only response is the wind threading through Aleppo pines. Then a dog barks, once, as if embarrassed by the outburst. In Pajaron, population seventy-seven, this counts as the lunch-time rush.

At 1,050 m the air is thinner, cleaner, and carries the resinous scent of the forest that laps against the last houses. The village sits on a limestone wedge that drops away to the River Escabas, giving every west-facing window a 30-kilometre view across the Serranía Baja without a turbine, warehouse or Costa-style development breaking the line. What you see is what shepherds saw four centuries ago: ridge after ridge folding into a blue-grey distance, oak and pine alternating with chalky clearings where wheat once grew.

Stone is the local language. Walls, roofs, even the troughs are quarried from the same beige-grey slab, so when the evening sun hits, the whole place glows like embers. Houses are tall and narrow—two storeys plus an attic for the grain—because level ground is precious. Streets are simply gaps between buildings; they twist, shrink to footpaths, then widen into tiny plazas where geraniums in oil tins provide the only deliberate colour. There is no defined centre, no Baroque town hall, no souvenir shop. The closest thing to a monument is the portón of number 14 Calle Real, a barn door hinged with hand-forged iron straps thick enough to resist axes, time and neglect.

Walking without waymarks

Maps call the surrounding terrain “medium-altitude Mediterranean mountain”, which translates to breezy ridges in summer and snow pockets till April. Footpaths exist because villagers still use them: to check a distant water trough, to reach a plot of almonds, to visit a cousin in Garaballa. Set off south-east on the track past the cemetery and within twenty minutes you are under pine silence, the village reduced to a stone ripple on the skyline. Another forty minutes brings you to the ruined cortijo of El Chorro, roof long gone but the bread oven intact; swallows use the chimney as a watchtower. There is no entry fee, no information board, just the smell of wild thyme crushed underfoot.

If you prefer your walks signed, drive ten minutes to the Escabas gorge where PR-CU 93 follows the river through limestone cliffs and kingfisher pools. The round trip is 8 km, easy except for one 200 m scramble over boulders the size of Mini Coopers. Mid-week you will have it to yourself; Sundays you might meet a family from Cuenca with a picnic of cold cuts and Coca-Cola.

What passes for hospitality

Don’t expect a tapas trail. The only bar, Casa Juana, opens when Juana’s grandchildren are around to help, roughly Friday evening to Sunday lunch. Coffee comes in glasses, wine in tumblers, and the menu is whatever Ángel has cooked for the family: perhaps caldereta de cordero (lamb stew) or migas—fried breadcrumbs topped with grapes from the vine outside the door. A plate costs €7; payment is cash in an ice-cream tub. If the roller shutter is down, your options are the picnic you brought or a 25-minute drive to Priego where Mesón de la Sierra does excellent trout with jamón, weekdays included.

Accommodation is similarly scarce. There are two village houses licensed for rural tourism: Casa del Pino (sleeps four, €90 a night) and Casa Rural La Solana (sleeps six, €120). Both have wood-burning stoves and terraces that catch the sunset, but you bring your own groceries and make your own bed. Booking is direct—no Airbnb cut—and the owner meets you with a key and a warning that the water heater takes five minutes to wake up. Mobile coverage is patchy; Wi-Fi depends on a 4G router that sulks when the wind is easterly. Consider it digital rehab.

Seasons and their quirks

April and May turn the clearings yellow with rockrose and the night temperature stays above 8 °C, perfect for walking without a fleece. By July the thermometers touch 32 °C at midday, but the air is so dry that shade actually works and the nights drop to a sleep-friendly 16 °C. August brings village-hoppers from Madrid seeking “authenticity”; the population swells to perhaps 120 and someone inevitably parks a Range Rover across the laundry fountain. September is the sweet spot: warm days, cool nights, almonds ready for knocking off trees with a long stick.

October means mushrooms. The chanterelle ridges are a closely guarded secret, but even amateurs can find abundant níscalos (Lactarius sanguifluus) under pines on north-facing slopes. Spanish law lets you collect 3 kg per person per day for personal consumption; carry a basket (plastic bags earn disapproving tuts) and a pocket knife. If you meet a local with a dog and a walking stick shaped like a question mark, nod politely and change direction—they are not looking for company.

Winter is serious. Snow can cut the CM-2106 for half a day and the village water pipes freeze. Owners of rental houses leave taps dripping and instruct guests to keep the heating on low overnight. The compensation is clarity: on wind-still evenings the lights of Tarancón, 50 km south, shimmer like a low constellation, while above them the Milky Way feels close enough to snag on a chimney pot.

A fiesta that almost refills the houses

The fiestas of San Juan Bautista, 24-26 June, are the only time Pajaron pretends to be bigger than it is. Emigrants who left for Barcelona or Valencia in the 1960s return with folding chairs and teenage grandchildren who speak Catalan. A sound system appears on a flat-bed lorry, belting out pasodobles until 3 a.m.; the village quadruples in noise if not in numbers. Saturday night ends with a communal paella cooked in a pan the size of a satellite dish; tickets are €10 and you need to put your name on a list taped to the church door by Friday noon. Sunday mass is sung, the priest drives back to Cuenca, and by Tuesday the only trace of celebration is the smell of gunpowder in the stone gutters.

Getting there, getting out

From the UK the usual route is London–Madrid (2 hrs 20) then A3 motorway to Tarancón, followed by the CM-2106 regional road for 38 km of bends. The last 12 km are narrow but paved; meet a tractor and someone has to reverse. Allow two and a half hours from Barajas, longer if Saturday traffic is fleeing the capital. There is no petrol station in the village; the closest is Priego, 18 km away, and it closes at 21:00. Car hire is essential—public transport is a school bus that passes through once a day on term-time weekdays only.

Leave early for the return flight. Winter fog can delay take-off from Madrid, and the Cuenca motorway is notorious for granite-faced lorry drivers who refuse to budge from the middle lane. More than one visitor has missed the last BMI departure while still queuing at the Tarancón toll.

Pajaron will not change your life. It offers no zip-lines, no Michelin stars, no influencer backdrops. What it does give, generously, is metric tonnes of silence, a lesson in how stone and time can outlast ambition, and the realisation that “nothing to do” can feel like an achievement rather than a complaint. Pack walking boots, a paperback you don’t mind finishing, and enough chorizo for two days longer than you planned to stay. After that, the village handles the rest.