Villar de Olalla

The church bell strikes seven and the only other sound is a tractor coughing to life somewhere beyond the stone houses. At 900 metres above sea level, Villar de Olalla's mornings arrive sharp and clear, the Sierra de Cuenca already glowing pink while the cereal plains below remain drowned in violet shadow. This is La Mancha in transition – the flat cereal ocean finally remembering it has bones underneath.

A village that refuses to play dress-up

Fifteen minutes' drive from Cuenca's hanging houses and tour-group tapas, Villar de Olalla keeps its back turned on the spectacle. The Plaza de la Hispanidad is still anchored by weekend market stalls selling queso manchego cut straight from the wheel, and the chemist shuts between two and four because that's how rural Spain works. Guidebooks call it a "bedroom community" for the provincial capital; locals simply call it home.

Stone façades the colour of dry earth line streets barely two cars wide. Some have been patched with aluminium windows and fresh render, others left to blister in the summer furnace. Nobody has painted the drainpipes sky-blue or hung geraniums in matching terracotta pots – the village has sidestepped the theme-park treatment that blights prettier neighbours. What you get instead is functionality: a bakery that opens at six, a bar where farmers argue over sunflower prices, and a tiny weekend honey stall whose owner will insist you taste three vintages before choosing.

High-plateau light and gorge winds

The mirador south-east of the church drops suddenly into the Huécar gorge, the same limestone cleft that carves past Cuenca's famous casas colgadas. From here the view feels almost Alpine: pine-dark ridges rolling east until they merge with the Serranía de Cuenca Natural Park, while westward the land flattens obediently into the classic meseta – kilometre after kilometre of wheat, barley and the occasional silver blur of an olive grove. The altitude knocks the edge off summer heat; even in July you might want a jumper after ten o'clock at night, and January brings proper frost that cracks the mud paths like old porcelain.

Walking options start right at the last streetlamp. A 7-kilometre loop south of the village threads between cereal plots and sudden holm-oak clumps, then climbs gently to the Ermita de la Soledad, a plaster-white hermitage that looks back over the whole basin. The route is way-marked but barely signed – expect to share it only with crested larks and the distant hum of the CM-2105. Mountain-bikers can string together farm tracks towards the hamlets of Villar de la Encina or La Alberquilla, riding rolling terrain that never decides whether it's plain or mountain.

What passes for cuisine when nobody's watching

Hotel Valmar's dining room does the regional greatest-hits album without the theatre. Order pisto manchego and you get a plate of slow-cooked peppers, aubergine and tomato topped with a fried egg – no basil drizzle, no sourdough crisp. The morteruelo, a pâté of game and liver sealed under a layer of lard, arrives exactly as it has since medieval times: heavy, pepper-hot, designed to keep shepherds alive when the thermometer freezes. A bottle of local co-operativo red costs six euros and tastes like tempranillo that has seen life; drinkable, honest, forgettable.

Sunday lunch is the social event. Families who left for Madrid or Valencia materialise with noisy children and German cars, filling the tables at Mesón la Plaza by two o'clock. If you haven't booked you'll be eating at the bar, which is arguably more entertaining – the house speciality conejo al ajillo (garlic rabbit) comes piled on earthenware plates while the television relays Barcelona's afternoon drama. Vegetarians should ask for migas – fried breadcrumbs with grapes – and brace themselves for portions sized by people who still work the land.

Using the village rather than admiring it

Villar de Olalla works best as a base camp rather than a destination. Cuenca's World Heritage core is fifteen minutes away by car; park in the new underground by the Parque de San Julián and walk up to the casas colgadas before the tour buses arrive at eleven. The Enchanted City karst landscape opens another twenty minutes east, a scramble of limestone mushrooms that will keep children happy for exactly one hour and twenty minutes – take a picnic because the café is dire. Serious walkers can push deeper into the Serranía for the full Huécar or Júcar gorge circuits, returning to the village in time for beer priced at €1.80 a caña.

Evening options are limited, and that is the point. Sit on the bench outside the church and you'll hear swifts slicing the sky while the plaza's plane tree hisses in the breeze. By half past ten the bakery timer clicks off, the last tractor rumbles home, and darkness feels almost total – street lighting is considerate rather than aggressive. Bring a paperback, or simply watch stars that haven't been edited by urban glare.

The practical ledger

You'll need wheels. A hire car from Madrid-Barajas reaches the village in ninety minutes via the A-40 and the CM-210; the alternative is a train to Cuenca (AVE 55 min from Madrid-Chamartín) followed by a pre-booked taxi that costs €20–25. Public buses exist in theory – one mid-morning, one late afternoon – but they don't run on Sundays and often skip days when the driver fancies fishing instead.

Accommodation clusters at the southern exit. Apartamentos Turísticos La Antigua Posada offers four self-catering flats built around a 19th-century inn; rooms have beams, terracotta floors and the faint smell of wood smoke, though walls are thin enough to follow your neighbour's Netflix choices. Hotel Valmar has eighteen simple rooms, a small pool (open May–September), and a breakfast strong enough to fuel a hike. Neither establishment could be labelled luxurious, yet both stay busy at weekends with Madrileños fleeing the capital's prices.

Fill the tank and the fridge in Cuenca before you arrive; the village supermarket closes at 14:00 and all day Sunday, and the nearest filling station is back on the motorway. ATMs sometimes run dry on Saturday night when half the province comes in for dinner, so carry cash. Phone reception dips in the gorge valleys – download offline maps and expect WhatsApp to sulk.

Come in April–May when the fields flare green and the air smells of wet thyme, or during late-September almond harvest when the slopes look butter-stained. July and August hit 35 °C by noon; winter brings crisp light and empty paths, but be ready for minus temperatures at dawn and the possibility of snow blocking the mountain road to Beteta.

Leave the postcards in the drawer. Villar de Olalla offers no signature selfie-spot, no artisanal gin distillery, no sunset yoga on a roof terrace. What it does provide is an unfiltered slice of Castilian life: bread at dawn, siesta at two, church bells marking the hours like they have since 1643. Stay a couple of nights, use it as a launchpad for Cuenca's drama, then retreat each evening to watch the meseta fade into violet silence.