Puebla de Beleña

The thermometer on the car dashboard drops a full five degrees in the last ten minutes of the climb. At 935 metres, Puebla de Beleña appears suddenly: a huddle of stone roofs balanced on a ridge, the church tower acting like a ship’s mast above an ocean of wheat. Forty-nine residents, one road in, and no souvenir shop—this is the Spain that guidebooks normally leave out.

A Village That Forgot to Modernise

Most visitors barrel down the A-2 towards Zaragoza without realising the turn-off exists. Once you leave the motorway at Torija, the tarmac narrows, phone bars vanish, and the only traffic is the occasional tractor dragging a plume of dust. The final 12 km wriggle through wheat fields so uniform they look ironed. Then the road tips upwards, the engine labours, and the village materialises like a mirage built from honey-coloured stone.

Houses here grew organically rather than to plan. Adobe walls two feet thick keep interiors cool at midday and warm when night temperatures skid to single figures—even in May. Wooden doors hang on medieval iron hinges; many still have the original stone bench where grandfathers once sat to escape the indoor oven of August. You will not find boutique hotels. Accommodation means three rural cottages signed up to the regional tourism board, each around €70 a night and booked solid during Easter and the August fiestas. Call the number taped inside the bakery window; if María doesn’t answer, try again after siesta.

Walking Rings Around the Horizon

Maps are pinned up in the ayuntamiento window, photocopied so many times the contours have blurred into ghosts. The routes are simple: pick a track, walk until the village shrinks to postage-stamp size, then turn round. Distances are measured by fields, not kilometres—three wheat plots to the ruined cortijo, two more to the oak that holds a pair of storks’ nests. Early risers get hoopoes flitting across the path and, if the wind is right, the grunt of a wild boar in the river gulley below.

Summer hiking demands strategy. By 10 a.m. the sun is already a physical weight; shade exists only under the scattered holm oaks, and even lizards seek cover. Start at seven, carry two litres of water, and wear a hat that actually covers your neck. Winter reverses the deal: skies shine cobalt, the wheat stubble crunches like broken biscuits underfoot, and you can walk all day without meeting anyone—except perhaps Miguel on his quad, checking sheep troughs.

Eating What the Fields Provide

The village shop doubles as the bakery and is open for precisely four hours each morning. Bread leaves the oven at 9 a.m.; if you arrive at 9:45 the rack is bare and the owner will shrug as though physics, not queues, emptied it. No coffee machine, no postcards—just tinned tuna, tetrabrick milk, and local honey decanted into old Stolichnaya bottles. €4 buys enough to cover breakfast.

For anything more ambitious, drive twenty minutes to Tamajón. There, Casa Juan serves caldereta de cordero that tastes like shepherd’s pie without the mash, followed by gachas—paprika-spiced porridge that sounds medieval and tastes like comfort on a cold day. A three-course lunch with wine hovers around €14, but they still expect cash; the card machine arrived, lasted a week, and was returned to its box.

When the Village Re-Inflates

Visit in February and you might count more dogs than humans. Come August, the population quadruples. Sons and daughters who left for Madrid or Barcelona return with cool-boxes, football shirts and children who speak city Spanish too fast for grandparents to follow. The fiestas are low-budget: mass under the parish nave, a foam machine in the square one night, and a communal paella stirred by men who argue over salt like stock-market traders. Outsiders are welcomed but not announced; if you want to join in, bring your own chair and a bottle from the Uclés co-op—€6, drinkable even for those raised on New Zealand Sauvignon.

The Practical Bits No One Mentors

Fuel: Last reliable petrol is at Torija, 35 km east. The village pump closed in 2008 and now grows weeds through its forecourt.

Cash: The ATM in the next village along is empty every Monday and fiesta day. Bring euros or prepare to barter.

Phone signal: Vodafone works on the church steps, Orange on the ridge outside town, EE nowhere at all. Download offline maps before you leave the motorway.

Weather: At 935 m, nights can be ten degrees cooler than Guadalajara. Even July requires a fleece after ten o’clock. Frost in April is common enough to make farmers shrug.

Access: The road is ploughed after snow, but not instantly. If winter whites arrive, pack chains or prepare to wait for José’s tractor to tow you out.

Leaving Without a Fridge Magnet

Puebla de Beleña will not suit everyone. There is no castle to enter, no interpretative centre, no artisanal ice-cream. What you get instead is amplitude: skies calibrated to a wider scale than British horizons, wheat that changes colour like slow television, and a silence so complete you can hear your own pulse. If that sounds like deprivation rather than luxury, stay on the A-2. If it sounds like oxygen, take the turning, park by the church, and walk until the only thing moving is the wind combing the barley.