Alcolea de las Peñas

The church bell strikes noon, yet only three villagers appear. One carries a ladder, another a loaf under his arm. At 1,050 m above sea level, Alcolea de las Peñas keeps its own timetable: sunrise wakes the goats, sunset closes the only bar, and the seasons decide whether the access road is tarmac or mud.

Stone, Sky and Ten Front Doors

The hamlet hunches against a limestone ridge like a barnacle on a ship’s hull. Every house is built from the same grey-white rock that towers above it, so walls and cliff seem to merge after rain. Roofs wear curved Arab tiles, heavy enough to withstand the serrano wind that can rip through the Guadalajara uplands at 70 km/h. Notice the doorways: barely 1.8 m high, designed for people who averaged five foot four, and still equipped with wrought-iron latches that squeal exactly like film sound-effects departments imagine.

There is no centre, just a tilted triangle of cracked concrete where three lanes meet. The triangle functions as car park, sheep-crossing and occasional dance floor during the fiesta of San Pedro (29 June), when population swells from ten to eighty and someone plugs an amplifier into the bakery socket. The rest of the year the loudest noise is the weekly delivery van reversing.

Walk the perimeter in eight minutes, then start again more slowly. Half-way up the incline, a passage narrows to shoulder width; sunlight bounces between walls still warm from the previous afternoon, and swallows stitch the air overhead. Look for the stone carved with a date of 1678 – it was recycled from an earlier shepherd’s hut and now forms part of somebody’s kitchen.

Walking on Empty

Maps call the surrounding territory La Serranía, but locals say simply “el monte”. From the last cottage a stony track heads east toward the abandoned farm of El Hoyo Alto, gaining 200 m in 3 km. The gradient feels British – think Peak District rather than Ben Nevis – but the temperature is continental: even in April the mercury can leap from 5 °C at dawn to 24 °C by two o’clock. Carry more water than you think necessary; springs marked on the 1:50,000 sheet often run dry by May.

Griffon vultures patrol the thermals, wingspan almost two metres. Sit quietly on the rim of the old quarry and they will cruise past at eye level, curious rather than threatening. Lower down, limestone slabs have been sliced into natural benches; early miners used them as outdoor tables while they dug out aggregate for the Guadalajara–Soria railway. Pick up a fragment and you will find fossilised sea lilies, proof that this plateau once lay under a warm Jurassic ocean 140 million years ago.

If you prefer circular routes, drive ten minutes to the bridge over the Rio Dulce and follow the GR-86 waymarks north to Castil de Galve. The path keeps to 900 m contour, weaving between holm oaks and junipers that smell of gin when the sun hits them. Total distance 12 km; allow four hours including the inevitable stop to watch wild boar piglets root among last autumn’s leaves.

Where to Eat, Sleep and Fill the Tank

Accommodation inside the village amounts to one self-catering house, Casa de los Tres Arcos, booked through the provincial tourist office in Sigüenza. It sleeps four, costs €90 a night, and the hot-water tank insists on a twenty-minute siesta between showers. Bring slippers: stone floors are beautiful but murder at 7 a.m. when the night temperature has dropped to freezing.

For food you have two choices. Drive 18 km south to Cogolludo where Mesón de la Plaza does a three-course menú del día for €14 including wine, or phone María Luisa (949 347 012) the day before and she will leave a casserole of judías con liebre (beans and hare) on your windowsill. There is no shop, no cash machine, and the nearest petrol pump is 35 km away in Arcos de Jalón – fill up before you leave the A-2 motorway.

Winter Rules

Between December and March the road from the N-211 is technically open but not recommended after 4 p.m. Shadow settles early in the valley, moisture turns to black ice, and the guardrail is best described as theoretical. Chains are rarely mandatory but hire them anyway at Guadalajara train station; the €30 weekend rate is cheaper than a 60-km tow. Snow usually arrives in short, sharp bursts – 20 cm overnight, gone three days later – but enough to silence the already quiet lanes. If you do venture up, the reward is a sky so dark that the Milky Way casts shadows and Orion feels close enough to touch with a walking pole.

A Fiesta that Fits in a Barn

San Pedro’s day begins with a priest driven in from Sigüenzca, because Alcolea lost its resident vicar in 1978. Mass is held outside if the wind allows; folding chairs are borrowed from the agricultural co-op in Humanes. After the Ángelus, the village women distribute rosquillas (aniseed doughnuts) dipped in local honey, then everyone squeezes into the only ground-floor room big enough for dancing. A playlist that starts with Pasodobles segues into 1980s Spanish pop; by midnight the generator is coughing on the last litre of diesel and the mayor’s nephew is demonstrating how to quejío to a startled visitor from Zaragoza. Next morning the chairs go back, the population drops to single figures, and silence reclaims the streets until the honey harvest in September.

Departing with Dust on Your Shoes

Leave early enough to catch the sun rising behind the ridge, turning the limestone gold then pink then white again. The track descends through aromatic thyme that releases its scent under your tyres; by the time you reach the first proper junction the village is invisible, folded back into its rock. You will carry away no fridge magnet, no artisan cheese, probably no photographs of people – locals dislike the lens and politely turn away. Instead you acquire a calibration point: a place where ten souls keep a whole mountainside alive, and where the loudest sound at midday is your own heart rate slowing to match the altitude.