Majaelrayo

The church bell tolls twelve times and only a cat hears it. From the stone bench outside Santa María, the whole village is visible: thirty-odd houses roofed in wafer-thin slate, a single-lane road that stops rather than ends, and the 2,048 m hump of Ocejón rising like a breached whale to the north. At 1,182 m above sea level, Majaelrayo feels closer to the Cantabrian coast than to Madrid, though the capital lies only 100 km south-west. The air is thin, dry and flavoured with resin; even in June you may want a jumper after sundown.

The Black Architecture Walk

Every building here is dressed in the same dark stone quarried from the surrounding Sierra de Ayllón. Walk the five-minute spine of the village and you’ll pass hand-forged iron hinges, timber balconies warped by winters, and granaries raised on stilts to keep mice from the harvest. There is no painted façade, no flower-pot tourism office. The uniformity is deliberate: slate absorbs heat by day and releases it slowly at night, a primitive form of central heating that made life possible when only 53 souls called this place home. Pause where the lane narrows to a gutter; rainwater has polished the slabs into a mirror that reflects the sky and reminds you how rare tarmac is up here.

If the wooden door of El Pajar Negro is open, step inside. The B&B keeps only four rooms, each with beams blackened by centuries of wood-smoke. British guests tend to arrive with Ordnance Survey habits, asking for a “walking brief”; owner Jesús produces a hand-drawn map annotated in English and marks the spring that tastes of iron. Breakfast is toast rubbed with tomato, olive oil and a pinch of salt—simple, filling, and easy to replicate with supermarket ingredients back home.

Setting Your Sights on Ocejón

The mountain dominates every photograph, but it is not a stroll. From the last electricity pole at the edge of the village to the summit takes two and a half hours of steady ascent, gaining 870 m across scree and broom-scented scrub. The path is way-marked, yet fog can drop in minutes; download the free IGN map before leaving the Wi-Fi zone. On a clear morning you’ll see the medieval town of Ayllón to the west and, allegedly, the skyscrapers of Madrid on the horizon—though that may be wishful thinking reinforced by altitude.

Start early. By 08:30 the sun is already punitive, and there is no café on the ridge. Carry two litres of water per person; the only stream runs dry in July. The descent is hard on knees—walking poles save quarrels later. Back at the village fountain, dunk your cap in the trough: the water emerges at 8 °C even in August.

Beech Woods and Bee-Sting Honey

Six kilometres north, the road corkscrews down to Tejera Negra, Europe’s southernmost beech forest. Entry is free but you must reserve a parking slot online; the system is in English and accepts foreign plates. From the barrier it is a flat forty-minute riverside walk to the heart of the wood, where trunks twist like barley sugar and October brings a brief, brassy colour show that British Instagrammers have started to label “mini-Scotland.” Adders are present but shy; the real hazard is losing track of time and missing the automatic gate, which locks at dusk. Miss it and you face a 10 km detour on a dirt track suitable only for goats and 4x4s.

Back in the village, buy a 250 g jar of raw honey at Casa del Ocejón reception. The label lists “multi-floral” but the flavour is distinctly heather and lavender, mild enough for children who find English blossom honey too perfumed. Price: €7, cash only—there is no ATM for 20 km.

What to Eat When There’s Only One Menu

Weekenders sometimes arrive expecting a tapas crawl and find two eateries, one of which may be shut. Mesón El Jabalí opens every day in high season and serves the classics: roast suckling lamb, Iberian pork shoulder, chips done in olive oil. A half-portion of cordero is still half a kilo; share unless you’ve just run the Ocejón half-marathon, held on the first Saturday of July and notorious for its 5 km uphill start. Vegetarians get scrambled eggs with wild mushrooms, though staff may look puzzled if you ask for dairy-free. House red from the Uclés cooperative slips down like Ribena with manners; a bottle costs €12 and tastes better than many London pub wines at £30.

If you prefer to self-cater, ring ahead. The village shop closed in 2019. The nearest supermarket is in Tamajón, a 35-minute drive along switchbacks that feel longer after dark. Stock up on tinned tuna, bread and tomatoes and you can assemble the Spanish field ration: pan con tomate, tinned fish, a beer from the fridge at Casa del Ocejón, and the Milky Way overhead.

Seasons and Sensibilities

Spring brings nights at 5 °C and days that nudge 18 °C; cowslips push through slate cracks and the air smells of damp charcoal. Summer is fierce by midday, glorious by evening. Autumn is the photographers’ favourite: beech gold, oak rust, slate grey. Winter is serious: the CM-101 is routinely chained above 1,000 m, and the village can be cut off for 48 hours. British second-home owners who bought idyllic restoration projects now schedule deliveries of butane and firewood for October and hunker down until March. Visit then only if you enjoy your own company and can manage without Deliveroo.

Phone signal is patchy inside stone walls; step into the square for two bars of 4G. Wi-Fi is decent at the two guesthouses, but streaming is frowned upon—bandwidth is rationed like water in a desert outpost.

Leaving Without a Fridge Magnet

Majaelrayo will not sell you a souvenir. There is no gift shop, no fridge magnet shaped like Ocejón, no artisanal soap scented with “essence of empty Spain.” What you can take away is the sound of slate under boot, the sight of a lammergeier drifting above the beech canopy, and the realisation that 53 people still vote, still bury their dead, still light the church candles long after the tour buses have turned back towards the motorway. Drive away at dusk and the village shrinks in the mirror until only the mountain remains, black against a bruised sky, reminding you that some places prefer to be left alone—with or without you.