Belmontejo

The road climbs past Cuenca and keeps climbing. At 878 metres, when ears pop and mobile signal flickers, Belmontejo appears: a single file of whitewashed houses gripping a ridge that separates La Mancha’s wheat ocean from the first teeth of the Serranía. There are no signposts promising viewpoints, no craft shops, no menu-del-día chalkboards. Just the sound of wind combing through cereal fields and the smell of rain on limestone.

A Village that Measures Time by Harvests

Belmontejo’s year is divided into three colours. April paints the surrounding slopes an almost violent green; by July the same land has bleached to platinum; October brings soot-black plough lines and the thunk of tractors echoing off the valley walls. With only 141 registered inhabitants, the place feels like a working farm that happens to have streets. Wheat chaff drifts onto the single playground; dogs sleep in the shadow of a 1950s tractor half hidden behind the church. Visitors expecting souvenir stalls will find instead a communal bread oven still fired on feast days and a noticeboard whose most recent entry advertises a second-hand rotavator.

The altitude matters. Even in May you might wake to 7°C while Cuenca basks in 18°C. Summer nights drop to 15°C, so bring a fleece for star-gazing. Winter can lock the access road under powdery snow for two or three days at a time; locals keep chains in 4×4 pickups and regard the white stuff as a social event rather than a crisis. If you arrive between December and February, park facing downhill and carry boots with tread.

What Passes for Sights

Start at the church—no nameplate, everyone calls it “la iglesia”. Built in 1743 over something older, it has a single nave, a bell that weighs 212 kilos, and a door which sticks in damp weather. Inside, the walls carry patches of 19th-century stencilling: ochre vines and cobalt medallions that the parish priest once tried to scrub off until the village threatened to withhold the harvest tithe. Light filters through alabaster panes, throwing every stone vein into relief; photographers should come between 10 and 11 a.m. when the angle is kind.

From the tiny plaza three lanes fan out like spokes. Calle Real still has two houses with coats-of-arms carved during the 1812 wheat boom; knock and Doña Milagros will let you peer into her grandfather’s grain store, now stacked with firewood and a colony of old Semana Santa banners. Further up, a ruined lime kiln clings to the slope; climb the outer wall (mind the nettles) and you can see the cereal plain ripple westward until it dissolves into heat haze. The horizon is so wide it feels nautical.

Walking without Waymarks

Belmontejo is too small for signed PR routes, which paradoxically makes it liberating. Take the concrete track that leaves from the cemetery gate; within fifteen minutes the village shrinks to Lego size and you are alone with larks and the occasional shepherd on a quad bike. The path follows a low ridge once used by muleteers hauling wool to the Cuenca fairs; after 4 km it dips into an oak hollow where wild asparagus sprouts in April and where griffon vultures ride thermals overhead. Turn back when you hit the drystone hut with a tin roof—beyond that the track forks into private farmland and the farmer’s Alsatian is uninterested in negotiations.

If you fancy a longer haul, continue another 6 km to the abandoned hamlet of El Sabinar. Roofless houses stare like skulls, but the stone wine press still holds water after storms. Total round trip: 20 km, 500 m cumulative ascent. Carry 1.5 litres per person; the only spring on route dried up in the 2012 drought and has never recovered.

Eating Where There Are No Restaurants

Belmontejo has zero bars. Zero. The last one closed in 2007 when the owner retired to Valencia. Self-catering is therefore not a hipster preference but a necessity. Cuenca’s Tuesday market sells Manchego curado at €14 a kilo, spicy chorizo from Tarancón at €9, and rock salt–crusted bread that stays fresh for three days. Bring supplies, then knock on the door of Casa Rural La Solana (€70 per night, two-night minimum). Owner Julián will lend you a terracotta cazuela and show how to cook gazpacho manchego the proper way—gamey hare, not tomatoes—over a butane ring.

If you crave a chair and a menu, drive 22 km to Huélamo. There, Venta Pilar serves cordero al estilo de la Mancha: shoulder slow-roasted with garlic and vinegar, €16 for half a kilo, enough for two hungry walkers. They open weekends only; ring 969 24 70 33 before you set off because Pilar sometimes closes if her granddaughter has a football match.

When the Village Throws a Party

Belmontejo’s fiestas patronales revolve around the Virgen de la Asunción, 14–16 August. The population swells to maybe 400 as descendants flood back. On the first evening villagers drag sound speakers into the street and dance pasodobles until the amplifier overheats. At 6 a.m. a rocket announces the diana, a wandering brass band that guarantees no-one oversleeps. The high point is the procesión on the 15th: the statue, dressed in a cloak embroidered with wheat sheaves, is carried up to the threshing ground where a priest blesses the coming harvest. Even agnostics feel something when the hymn drifts across the fields and eagles circle overhead. Accommodation during fiesta is impossible unless you have cousins; book in neighbouring Villar del Humo or sleep in your hire car—police tolerate overnight parking by the sports court.

Getting Here, Getting Out

From the UK the simplest route is Stansted to Valencia, then Alamo or Enterprise hire car (book early in August; fleets shrink). It’s 180 km, mostly on the A-3 motorway. Petrol is cheaper at the Repsol just outside Requena than on the Cuenca ring road. The final 23 km from the N-420 to Belmontejo are tarmac but narrow; meeting a combine harvester round a bend concentrates the mind. In winter carry snow chains—local police will turn you back without them if the white sign says “Equipamiento obligatorio”.

No buses run to the village. The Monday school service was axed in 2019 after the last teenager moved to Cuenca for secondary college. Taxi from Cuenca costs €95; try Tele-Taxi 969 23 01 91 and agree price beforehand because the meter will sulk at the return empty run.

Leaving Without the Gift Shop

Belmontejo will not sell you a fridge magnet. What it offers instead is a calibration device for urban clocks: the realisation that bread is seasonal, that weather is still discussed in inches of rainfall rather than likes, and that silence can thump louder than traffic. Drive away at dusk and the village folds into the ridge like a paper cut-out, the church tower the last thing to vanish. Ten minutes down the road you’ll pick up 4G and the inbox will explode back to life. The altitude headache will be gone, but the wheat-coloured light will lodge behind your eyes for days.