Alcadozo

The church bell strikes midday and the only other sound is a tractor grinding up the hill. At 925 m above sea level, Alcadozo’s thin air makes the clang travel further, bouncing off stone walls the colour of burnt toast. This is the Sierra de Alcaraz, 70 km west of Albacete, and the village’s 648 residents have learned to let the mountain set the pace.

A town that forgot to grow

Most visitors race past the turn-off on the CM-3203, bound for better-known towns with postcard plazas. What they miss is a settlement that never bothered with architectural frills. Houses grow straight from the rock, their roofs pitched to shrug off winter snow and their doorways just wide enough for a mule. There is no main square in the guidebook sense; instead, a triangle of cracked concrete outside the Bar Centro acts as the informal parliament. Order a café con leche here and the barman will slide a plate of migas—fried breadcrumbs laced with chorizo—without being asked. The bill rarely tops €3.

The single lane that doubles as the high street peters out after 300 m. Beyond it, the tarmac surrenders to a gravel track that climbs into pine and holm-oak. Walk ten minutes and the village shrinks to a smudge of ochre among the green. On a clear day you can pick out the slate roofs of Chinchilla, 35 km away, and count the wind turbines on the horizon like grey needles.

What passes for sights

The 16th-century Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción squats at the top of the gradient, its tower more functional than elegant. Inside, the air smells of candle wax and damp stone; the altarpiece is gilded but peeling, a reminder that restoration grants seldom reach places this small. If the door is locked—common outside fiesta weekends—peer through the wrought-iron grille and you will see the priest’s wellingtons parked beside the font.

The real museum is the built fabric itself. Stone lintels still carry the mason’s chisel marks; chimney pots lean at tipsy angles after decades of freeze and thaw. House numbers are hand-painted on blue tiles, many commemorating weddings long dissolved. Photograph them if you like, but nobody will offer a spiel or expect a tip.

The woods pay the bills

From late October the car park below the cemetery fills with SEATs and mud-splattered 4x4s. Their owners emerge in quilted waistcoats, wicker baskets under each arm: mushroom season. The hills around Alcadozo flush with níscalos (saffron milk-caps) and rovellóns (bloody milk-caps), prized across Valencia and Murcia. Prices back in town start at €18 a kilo, so locals guard GPS coordinates like state secrets. Visitors are welcome to forage, but pick the wrong species and the pharmacist will scold you in public. The rule is simple: if you cannot identify it, leave it.

Even off-season the sierra is the village’s cash machine. Cyclists use the paved loop towards Elche de la Sierra for 40 km of steady gradient and negligible traffic; the ascent never bites like the Alps, but 1,200 m of cumulative climb is enough to make thighs twitch. Hiking paths follow old mule tracks—look for dry-stone walls that once divided wheat terraces now swallowed by pines. Maps are downloadable from the regional website, but phone signal drops after the first ridge, so screenshot the route before you set off.

Eating on mountain time

Kitchens open late and close later. The only restaurant, Casa Torralba, begins service at 21:00 sharp; arrive early and you will find the door locked even if the chef is inside shelling almonds. The menu is written on a chalkboard and changes with the weather. Expect gazpacho manchego—not the chilled tomato soup Brits know, but a steaming bowl of game broth poured over flatbread and rabbit. A half-portion is still large enough to share; ask for “medio” and the waiter will look impressed you knew the word. House red from Almansa arrives in a plain glass bottle and costs €7; it tastes like blackberry and chalk, and you can walk home after two.

Breakfast is easier. The bakery opens at 07:00, baking the same ovals of crusty bread that have left the oven since 1934. Buy a loaf still warm, tear the heel off on the doorstep, and the village women will greet you like an honorary neighbour.

When to come, when to stay away

April and late-September deliver 22 °C afternoons and cool nights thin enough for proper sleep. In July the mercury can touch 36 °C, but the altitude keeps humidity low—sweat evaporates before it stains. January brings snow that lingers a day at most; roads are gritted quickly because the doctor lives 25 km away and babies will not wait for a thaw.

The fiesta proper runs 12–17 August. The population quadruples, every spare room hosts cousins from Alicante, and the silent triangle of concrete becomes a fairground. Book accommodation months ahead or you will end up sleeping in the car. The other date to note is 1 November: All Saints. Locals picnic in the cemetery, sharing almond cakes on family tombs. Turn up with flowers and you will be offered a slice before you can explain your Spanish is limited to bar chat.

Bring cash, bring wheels, bring patience

There is no petrol station, no cashpoint, and no supermarket—only a grocer that closes for siesta 14:00–17:00. Fill the tank in Albacete and withdraw enough euros for the weekend; card readers exist but fail whenever the wind blows from the west. A car is non-negotiable: the nearest shop for fresh milk is 12 km away in Peñas de San Pedro, and the rafting put-in on the Río Mundo is a 15-minute drive down a switchback. Mobile coverage is patchy; Vodafone cuts out entirely at the north end of the village, EE roams on Orange and works if you stand in the church porch.

Accommodation is limited to three self-catering cottages, of which only La Tinaja de Moriscote accepts online bookings. It sleeps four, welcomes dogs, and has a wood-burner because nights turn cold even in May. The owners leave a bottle of local oil on the table—thick, green, peppery stuff that makes supermarket extra-virgin taste like water.

The honest verdict

Alcadozo will not change your life. It offers no infinity pools, no artisan gin distillery, no Sunday supplement bragging rights. What it does give is a yardstick for how quiet a place can be when traffic, commerce and 21st-century urgency are stripped away. Sit on the crumbling bench outside the church at dusk and you will hear, in order: a dog barking two streets below, the click of knitting needles from an open window, and the wind combing the pines. After three days your own heartbeat starts to feel noisy.

Come for the mushrooms, the star-salted sky, the loaf that never cools. Just remember to fill up, stock up and log off before you arrive. The sierra does not do last-minute, and neither does Alcadozo.