Barchín del Hoyo

The only sound at 10 pm is a dog barking somewhere below the church tower and the soft clink of a farmer chaining his gate. Stand in the middle of Barchín del Hoyo’s single street, look up, and the Milky Way appears so bright it feels intrusive—like someone has switched on a work-lamp above the village. At 950 m, the air is thin enough to make the stars sharpen, and cold enough, even in July, to send you back for a jumper.

A bowl in the cereal sea

The village sits in a shallow depression scooped out of the meseta, hence the suffix del Hoyo—“of the Hollow”. Dry-stone walls loop around the lip of the bowl, corralling wheat and barley that ripples like water when the wind crosses from Cuenca’s uplands. The surrounding swell is gentle—nothing dramatic—but the cumulative effect is disorientating: every path eventually climbs back to the same skyline, so first-time walkers find themselves navigating by the church tower rather than any map.

That tower belongs to the parish of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, a squat 16th-century rectangle enlarged in patchwork fashion whenever the village outgrew its skin. Step inside and the temperature drops ten degrees; the stone smells of extinguished candles and grain dust. There is no ticket desk, no audio guide—just a printed notice requesting one euro for roof repairs and a handwritten list of recent baptisms.

What you won’t find (and why that matters)

There is no cash machine, no supermarket, no Saturday market. The last bakery closed when the proprietor retired in 2018; bread now arrives in a white van that honks its horn at 11 am, selling loaves from a folding table. Mobile reception flickers between 3G and nothing, so Google Maps habitually suggests roads that have been gated since the drought of 2017. Accepting this absence of infrastructure is part of the contract: Barchín functions as a counterbalance to the programmed ease of bigger Spanish towns.

What remains is a tight lattice of adobe and granite houses, many still owned by the same families since the 1921 cadastre. Some are collapsing gently, roofs open to the sky like broken biscuits; others have been reclaimed by weekenders from Valencia who plant geraniums in restored wine troughs and leave four-wheel-drives outside. The tension between decay and refurbishment gives the village its momentum—you can walk one block and see both narratives in adjoining buildings.

Walking without waymarks

Footpaths radiate from the lower barns on unmarked farm tracks. A useful rule: if the track splits, take the higher fork; you’ll gain the ridge sooner and the views open west towards the salt flats of Alcázar de San Juan, 70 km away. The loop to the abandoned caserío of Los Mayales is 7 km, almost flat, and takes two hours if you stop to watch harriers quartering the stubble. In April the verges are loud with corn buntings; by late June the cereal has been reduced to blond stubble and the only colour comes from crimson poppies growing where the combine missed.

Winter alters the arithmetic. Night frosts can linger until eleven in the morning, and the track to Los Mayales becomes a sluice of red clay that clings to boots like half-set concrete. January daytime highs hover round 6 °C, but the sky is enamel-blue and you will meet no one—useful if you’re testing new kit or simply want the plateau to yourself. Carry water even when the land looks soaked; village taps are often switched off to prevent burst pipes.

Eating: bring half the picnic, then improvise

Barchín has no bar, no restaurant, no Sunday menú del día. The nearest reliable food is in Villa de Ves, 12 km east, where Mesón la Esperanza dishes out caldereta (mutton stew) at €9 a plate, bread included. If that feels too far, shop in Cuenca before you leave: the Mercadona on Calle San Antolín stocks the local queso de Cuenca and vacuum-packed morcilla that keeps for 48 hours without refrigeration. In the village, knock on the door marked “Casa Roque” and Doña Asunción will sell you a dozen free-range eggs for €2.50; she prefers exact change and conversation in Spanish delivered slowly.

Evenings, the social centre migrates to the concrete bench outside the ayuntamiento. Someone usually produces a plastic bottle of mistela (sweet dessert wine) and plastic thimbles appear from jacket pockets. The etiquette is to accept one pour, maximum two, then pass the bottle along. English is scarce; a greeting of “Buenas noches, ¿qué tal el día?” is enough to earn a seat.

Dark-sky economics

Light pollution is so low that the village has started billing itself—quietly—as a destination for astro-tourists. There is no observatory, no star-party infrastructure, just a new municipal rule that streetlights switch off at midnight. Bring binoculars and a planisphere; set up on the earth dam above the threshing floors and you’ll see the Andromeda Galaxy without aid. August coincides with the Perseids and the local fiestas: for three nights the ayuntamiento lays on a free paella and projects astronomical slides against the church wall while half the village sits on hay bales. Beds run out fast; anyone arriving after 8 pm is offered a pew in the nave and a blanket that smells of incense.

Getting here (and away)

From London, the smoothest rail route is Eurostar to Paris, TGV to Barcelona, then AVE to Cuenca—about eleven hours city-centre to city-centre. Pick up a hire car at Cuenca’s Fernando Zóbel station; the desk closes at 8 pm sharp. The drive south on the CM-210 is 85 km of empty dual carriageway that shrinks to single-track for the final 14 km. Petrol is cheaper at the Repsol in Villanueva de la Jara, last stop before the wilderness. Buses do exist—one departure from Cuenca at 2 pm, returning at 6 am next day—but the timetable was designed for doctors, not tourists, and a same-day visit is impossible.

Accommodation inside the village is limited to three self-catering houses booked through the regional platform Rural Cuenca. Expect stone floors, wood-burning stoves and Wi-Fi that functions only in the kitchen. Prices sit around €70 a night for two people, minimum two nights in high season. Otherwise, the nearest hotel is in Casas de Juan Núñez, 25 km north: a modern monolith with a pool that overlooks the wind turbines—comfortable, but you lose the hollow-night silence that makes Barchín special.

Leave the car, take the silence

Stay long enough and the village recalibrates your sense of scale. Distances compress—everything important happens within 400 m—while time elongates. A farmer pruning vines takes half a morning; a conversation about rainfall can last twenty minutes and feel urgent. The real souvenir is auditory: the moment, back in Britain, when you notice motorway hum and remember that somewhere on the southern plateau ninety-seven people are living without it.