Miedes de Atienza

The road climbs past Atienza's ruined castle and keeps climbing. At 1,150 metres, where the tarmac narrows to a single track, Miedes appears—two streets of stone houses and a church tower that seems surprised to see you. Fifty-four souls live here, plus a dozen cats and a Labrador that follows strangers from one end of the village to the other.

This is Spain's empty quarter, the high plateau that buffers Castilla-La Mancha from Aragón. Mobile signal flickers in and out. The nearest cash machine is twenty-five kilometres away. What you get instead is silence so complete you can hear your own pulse, and skies that darken enough at night to show the Milky Way without squinting.

What passes for a high street

Calle Real—literally "Royal Street"—runs for 200 metres, bends once, and stops. Houses are built from the same grey-brown stone they stand on, roofs pitched steeply to shrug off winter snow. Timber doors hang on forged iron hinges older than the United Kingdom. Many are propped open, revealing cool flagstone interiors and the tick of grandfather clocks. Kitchen gardens behind low walls grow onions, lettuces and mint; nobody bothers locking the gates.

At the top of the slight rise stands the parish church, locked most days unless Teodoro the sacristan is tending his allotment opposite. He keeps the key in a tobacco tin and is happy to open up for anyone who asks politely. Inside, the single nave smells of candle wax and damp stone; the altar retable is a nineteenth-century repaint of something much older, its blues and reds already fading in the thin light.

There is no souvenir shop, no interpretive centre, no brown tourist sign. The only commercial premises is Bar Miedes, a front room converted into a café when someone's great-grandmother decided the village needed a social hub. Plastic tablecloths, football on a muted telly, a fridge humming louder than the conversation—that sort of place. It opens at seven for coffee and churros, shuts after lunch, reopens when the owner feels like it. If the door is closed, knock. She'll appear wiping her hands on an apron and ask whether you want the menú del día. There isn't a choice; you eat whatever pot is simmering. Expect thick lentil soup, lamb shoulder that falls off the bone, and home-made flan for nine euros including wine. Payment is cash only—notes preferred, coins accepted with a grimace.

Walking the old drove roads

Shepherds once drove sheep from these plains all the way to Córdoba for winter grazing. Their paths, now way-marked as the Cañada Real Leonesa, skirt the village and offer the easiest walking: broad, stony lanes that dip through holm-oak dehesa and climb again to open cereal fields. Way-markers are stone cairns rather than cheerful paint flashes; the intention is practical, not decorative.

A circular route of eight kilometres drops to the abandoned hamlet of Valdelagua, where roofless houses stand like broken teeth among nettles. Beyond, the path rises to a ridge giving sight of Atienza's castle turrets on the horizon and, further still, the snow-dusted summits of the Sistema Ibérico. Spring brings purple flax and white chamomile; by July everything is blonde and rustles in the wind. The only shade is what you carry on your head.

Serious hikers can link up with the GR-86 long-distance trail, but day visitors usually content themselves with a gentle out-and-back before the altitude headache sets in. At 1,150 m the air is thin enough to make uphill strides feel like gym intervals; carry water—there are no fountains outside the village.

Seasons and how to read them

April turns the surrounding plains emerald. Nights still drop to 3 °C; frost feathers the car windscreen while larks start singing at six. May is the sweet spot: warm afternoons, green wheat rippling like the sea, and enough daylight to linger outside without a jacket. Locals plant tomatoes then disappear indoors for siesta; you can walk for an hour and meet nobody except a tractor driver who raises two fingers from the steering wheel in salute.

Summer is fierce. Temperatures touch 35 °C but the altitude stops the air feeling syrupy; instead it burns. Shade is scarce, water precious. August fiestas haul the population up to perhaps 120 as emigrant grandchildren return. A sound system appears in the square, blasting reggaeton until the Guardia Civil remind them of the village curfew at two. For three days Miedes feels almost cosmopolitan; by the 17th the last cousin has driven to Madrid and silence reclaims the streets.

Autumn brings mushroom hunters and migrating cranes high overhead. Oak leaves bronze overnight; the grain stubble is burned off in controlled strips that glow after dark like lava flows. October mornings are golden, afternoons sharp. The first snow can arrive before Halloween, whitening roofs and melting by lunchtime.

Winter is not picturesque. Gales rake the plateau; the road ices over and the council grades it only when the school bus needs through (even though there are no longer any pupils). Pipes freeze, phones die, and the bar may close for days if the owner can't dig her car out. Visit only if you carry chains and a sense of humour.

Where to sleep (and why you might not)

There is no hotel, no rural cottage rental, not even a village albergue. The nearest beds are in Atienza—twenty minutes down the pass on a road that demands full beam and steady nerves after dark. Book there, visit Miedes for the afternoon, and retreat before the temperature plummets. Wild camping is tolerated provided you keep away from livestock and leave no trace; the ridge east of the church offers flat ground and sunrise views, but the wind will flay your tent alive.

Day-trippers base themselves in Sigüenza, half an hour west on the A-2. Its castle-parador has doubles from €110 if you fancy four-poster beds and a wine list; the town hostal charges €35 for a room that smells of pine disinfectant and offers hot water all day. Either way, fill the tank and the shopping bag before you leave—Miedes has neither petrol nor provisions.

Leaving without rushing

The return drive drops through switchbacks where griffon vultures circle at eye level. Pull over at the first lay-by and look back: the village appears no bigger than a handful of dice tossed onto brown felt. Somewhere inside that miniature outline Teodoro is locking the church, the bar owner is wiping tables, and the Labrador has found a new stranger to follow. The plateau stretches empty in every direction, reminding you how close Spain still keeps its wilderness—just an hour from the motorway, yet centuries away from the nearest souvenir shop.