San Pedro

San Pedro wakes when the church bell strikes six. Not because anyone sets an alarm, but because the sound carries clear across the Sierra de Alcaraz at 836 metres, rattling bedroom windows of stone houses that grip the hillside like they've grown there. By half past, someone's already hosing down the pavement outside number 14 Calle Real. The water runs downhill, past a bench where three men sit in silence, and disappears round a bend that would make a physiotherapist wince.

This is Albacete province's least theatrical corner. No tour buses, no gift shops, just 1,050 residents who still count their day by the bells and whose front doors stay open from May to September because the air up here behaves itself. The altitude knocks the edge off Castilla-La Mancha's furnace summers; evenings drop to 18 °C when the plain below is still flirting with 30 °C. Winter reverses the deal. January can park itself at –5 °C, and when snow arrives the road from Alcaraz becomes a lottery. Chains live in every boot from December to March.

The Architecture of Making Do

The village climbs a slope so steep that architects gave up on symmetry. Houses grow two storeys at the front, three at the back, all limestone whitewash and iron balconies painted the colour of Spanish olives. Look up and you'll spot stone shields wedged into the walls—remnants of minor nobility who ran out of money before they ran out of children. The parish church squats at the top, a patchwork of Gothic ribs, Baroque plaster and 19th-century brick. Inside, the main altarpiece glitters with gold leaf that local craftsmen applied in 1734, the same year the roof fell in for the second time. They simply rebuilt around the damage; you can still see the join if the sacristan feels like switching the lights on.

Below the church, Plaza Mayor isn't square, rectangular or even particularly flat. It's a tilted triangle where café tables wobble on irregular flagstones. Coffee costs €1.30, served in glasses that burn your fingers, and the waiter will remember how you take it if you turn up twice. The pharmacy clock runs ten minutes slow, deliberately, according to the owner. "Gives the pensioners something to argue about."

Walking Tracks That Expect You to Know What You're Doing

San Pedro sits inside a bowl of pine and oak that smells of resin after rain. Footpaths start from the cemetery gate, signed with paint dots that fade faster than the council can repaint them. The shortest loop, Sendero de la Cuesta, is 4 km of steady climb through carrasco pines and abandoned almond terraces. It delivers you to a ridge where buzzards ride thermals and the village looks like a white handkerchief dropped in a green basin. Allow ninety minutes, carry water, and don't trust the distance on the signpost—it was measured by a man with longer legs than you.

Serious walkers aim for the 12 km circuit to Fuenlabrada, a deserted hamlet whose houses collapsed during the 1950s rural exodus. The path crosses two streams that may or may not have water depending on last week's weather; locals wear ankle-high boots for the thistles. Mid-October brings mushroom hunters armed with curved knives and family secrets. They'll nod, never speak, because a patch of níscalos (saffron milk caps) is inheritance around here. If you don't know your trumpet of death from your funeral bell, admire the fungi and move on. The hospital in Albacete keeps a refrigerated unit for liver failures; every year someone tries.

Food That Arrives on Wednesday and Leaves on Sunday

The butcher's shop opens three days a week. Wednesday is mincing day—half the village queues for entrecôte, the other half waits for the cheaper shoulder that becomes estofado. Friday belongs to morcilla spiced with local oregano, and if you want tripe you need to order before 9 a.m. because Doña Pilar only cooks what she can sell. The bakery produces crusty barras at dawn; by 11 a.m. they're gone, replaced by sugary mantecados that collapse into lardy crumbs the moment you bite.

Restaurants follow the same scarcity principle. Mesón la Sierra serves gazpacho serrano (thick bread stew, nothing to do with Andalucía) only from October to April when the wood-fired oven stays lit. Summer menus switch to ajo de mataero—cold garlic soup heavy on egg and salt cod—because eating hot food when the thermometer hits 35 °C is considered a character flaw. House wine arrives in a glass bottle with no label; it's from Tomelloso, 60 km north, and costs €2 a quarter. They'll bring you tap water only if you ask; the waiter may raise an eyebrow but he'll comply.

Game appears after the first autumn rains. Jabalí (wild boar) stew spends six hours in a clay pot with cloves and bay from someone's garden. Portions are sized for people who spent the morning chasing goats across scree. Vegetarians get eggs—usually revuelto de setas, scrambled with wild mushrooms that the chef's cousin collected. Veganism is regarded as a medical condition; the kitchen will make you tomato salad and charge steak prices.

When the Village Lets Its Hair Down

San Pedro's big bang lands on the last weekend of August, when emigrants flood back from Madrid and Barcelona. The population triples, parking becomes a blood sport, and the council hires a portable disco that thumps until the Guardia Civil turns up. Saturday night features a paella for 800 cooked in a pan two metres wide; locals bring their own chairs, strangers get the leftovers. Sunday morning belongs to the running of the heifers—adolescent cows released in a cordoned street while teenage boys prove Darwin wrong. Accidents are rare; embarrassment is not.

June keeps things religious with the fiesta de San Pedro. Processions start at 7 p.m. when the heat loosens its grip, accompanied by a brass band that plays the same march it learned in 1962. Midnight fireworks echo off the surrounding cliffs, setting off every dog within five kilometres. January offers San Antón; residents lead horses, dogs and the occasional confused lamb to the church for blessing. The priest sprinkles holy water with a brush made of rosemary; animals shake, owners applaud, nobody explains why.

Getting Here, Staying Here, Leaving Again

Albacete's bus station runs one daily service at 14:15, arriving 16:10 after stopping at every hamlet along the N-322. The return leaves San Pedro at 6 a.m.; miss it and you're waiting 24 hours. Driving is simpler: take the A-32 towards Alcaraz, exit at kilometre 73, then follow the CM-412 for 28 km of curves that demand second gear and nerves of steel. Petrol stations vanish after kilometre 50; fill up in Albacete.

Accommodation totals four options. Casa Rural La Sierra has three doubles, beams you could ski down, and a breakfast that includes churros made while you watch. Price: €70 mid-week, €90 at weekends. Hostal El Pinar offers cleaner rooms above the bar, shared bathrooms, and Saturday-night karaoke that stops when the last singer falls over—€35 a night, earplugs included. Two village houses rent by the week through Alcaraz's tourist office; expect uneven floors, temperamental boilers and neighbours who prune geraniums at dawn.

Check-out time is whatever you negotiate. The owner will appear with a plastic shopping bag containing homemade membrillo (quince cheese) and instructions to return the jar next time you're passing. Whether that happens depends on how much you value silence, stars you can actually see, and bread that was alive four hours before you eat it. San Pedro doesn't do epiphanies; it simply keeps to its own rhythm. The bell will ring regardless, the water will still run downhill, and the old men will shift along the bench to make space—whether you take it is up to you.