Robledo

The church bell strikes eleven and nobody stirs. A single tractor idles in the plaza, its driver chatting through the window of Bar La Sierra about yesterday’s wild-boar tracks near the fuente. At 1,000 metres above the cereal plains of La Mancha, Robledo deems mornings something to be lingered over, not seized.

Serranía in Miniature

The village occupies a narrow ridge in the Sierra de Alcaraz, 25 kilometres south-west of Villarrobledo as the crow flies, yet climatic worlds away from the baking plateau below. Even in July the night air can carry a cardigan-cool edge; by January the thermometer regularly dips below freezing and the slate roofs glitter with frost. Locals claim that two metres of snow fell in 2021, blocking the A-31 for half a day—check the DGT traffic app before setting out in winter.

Stone-and-mortar houses, most barely two storeys, line three short streets that converge on the 16th-century parish church of San Pedro. There is no souvenir shop, no multilingual audioguide, no ticket booth—just a latch door that creaks open to a single-nave interior smelling of wax and extinguished candles. The retablo is modest, the bell tower more barn than baroque; what impresses is the silence that follows the clang of the front door shutting behind you.

Beyond the last cottage the ridge drops into a mosaic of holm-oak, kermes-oak and clusters of maritime pine. Waymarked paths are intermittent: one dirt track, drivable in dry weather, snakes 6 km to the abandoned cortijo of El Cañizo; another footpath descends 200 m to a spring where shepherds still fill plastic jerrycans. Both routes start opposite the cemetery—park considerately, the verge is also the school-bus turning circle.

Walking, Waiting and Wild Pork

Early risers are rewarded. Dawn mist pools in the valleys, and griffon vultures begin to kettle on thermals above the limestone crests. Roe deer feed along the field edges before retreating into the scrub; wild boar leave comma-shaped prints in the mud. Move slowly, speak softly, and sightings are near-guaranteed within an hour—far easier than in better-known Cazorla or the Sierra Nevada.

Maps. Bring one. Mobile coverage vanishes in the first ravine, signposts rot, and the local habit of lopping firebreaks means a path can simply stop at a four-metre pile of brushwood. The 1:50,000 “Sierra de Alcaraz y Campo de Montiel” sheet from the Instituto Geográfico Nacional covers the area and costs €8 in Albacete’s El Corte Inglés. A free alternative is the Wikiloc app—download tracks in the village bar while the Wi-Fi holds.

Calories and Cash

Robledo keeps culinary hours that would give a British tourist board palpitations. Between 16:00 and 20:30 the village eats nothing; restaurants (all two of them) fire up again for dinner around 21:00. Midday menus exist, but you must sit down before 14:30 or the kitchen has already mopped the floor. Specialities arrive heavy and hot: gazpacho manchego (a game-and-flatbread stew, nothing to do with Andalusian tomato soup), gachas dulces (flour porridge sweetened with anise and honey), and torreznos—inch-thick rectangles of pork belly fried until the rind fractures like top-quality crackling. Vegetarians should ask for “migas con uvas” and emphasise “sin chorizo”.

Payment is old-school. The cash machine lives 20 km away in Villarrobledo; Bar La Sierra’s card reader works “cuando quiere” (when it feels like it). Fill your wallet before the ascent, or you’ll be washing dishes.

Festivals Without Fanfare

The patronal fiestas honour the Virgen de Agosto around the 15th. The programme is decided two weeks earlier on the bonnet of a car: bull-running in a makeshift plaza de toros, foam party in the polideportivo, open-air paella for anyone who brings a plate. Visitors are welcome but not marketed to—if you stumble in, someone will hand you a plastic cup of warm lager and explain the rules of “calva”, a horseshoe-style game played with a metal puck. Beds are scarce; locals rent spare rooms by word of mouth for €25 a night. Ask in the bread shop, they keep the list.

When to Go, and When to Stay Away

April–May paints the hills acid-green and the temperature hovers around 18 °C—perfect for six-hour traverses to the cherry orchards of neighbouring Povedilla. September turns the oaks copper and brings mushroom permit season: pick up a €5 day licence online if you fancy foraging boletus; guards patrol and fines start at €300. August is tolerable thanks to altitude, yet the village doubles in population with returning emigrants; the solitary charm evaporates when every gateway hosts a bawling family reunion. December and January deliver crystalline skies but also sheet ice on the road from the motorway—carry snow socks even if the hire firm laughs at “sunny Spain”.

The Bottom Line

Robledo will not change your life. It offers no Michelin stars, no selfie-worthy fortress, no artisanal gin distillery. What it does provide is a benchmark for how much of inland Spain still lives: slowly, seasonally, with one eye on the weather and the other on the vegetable patch. Treat it as a staging post—combine with the Renaissance collegiate in Alcaraz (25 min) or the wine cooperatives of Villarrobledo—and you’ll leave rested, slightly better at Spanish verbs, and wondering why more people don’t escape the coast. Treat it as a multi-day destination without a car or Spanish phrases and you may find yourself staring at holm oaks for rather too long, dreaming of the Alicante seafront you sped past on the way up.