Torremocha de Jadraque

The bakery opens only when Andrés feels like it, the petrol gauge is flirting with empty, and the last mobile-bar icon vanished twenty minutes ago. At 930 m the air thins, the road narrows, and the only certain company is a boot-printed track that climbs towards a stone hamlet glued to a ridge. This is Torremocha de Jadraque, population somewhere between twenty and thirty depending on who is counting coffees that week, and it is about as far from the Costas as rural Spain can be.

The village that forgot to leave

Houses here were built for wind, not for show. Granite footings, adobe walls the colour of dry biscuit, and chimney pots shaped like witches’ hats huddle along alleyways barely wider than a shepherd’s staff. Half the doors are permanently shut—owners died or departed for Madrid factories in the 1970s—yet the place refuses the label “ruin”. Wood smoke still threads from a few stacks, a single streetlamp flickers on at dusk, and somebody’s radio leaks out flamenco guitar that ricochets off stone. Walking through feels less like sightseeing and more like trespassing on a life-support experiment in medieval town planning.

The church of San Miguel squats at the top, a one-nave, zero-frills rectangle whose bell tower doubles as the village mobile-phone hotspot (Movistar only, mind). Step inside and the temperature drops ten degrees; the smell is candle wax, old paper and the faint sweetness of grain stored in adjoining lofts centuries ago. No ticket desk, no audio guide, just a printed notice asking visitors to close the door against swifts that have learnt to swoop through for insect snacks.

Tracks for people who like getting slightly lost

No coloured way-markers here. Instead you get sheep trods, erosion gullies and the occasional cement post stamped “V.P.”—vía pecuaria, a public drove road older than any Ordinance Survey sheet. Head east and the path drops 400 m to the River Henares, where otter prints appear in morning mud and the only bridge is a plank balanced on oil drums. Turn west and you climb towards the Alto de Ocejón (1 348 m), a limestone crown visible from the village square if you stand on the recycling bin. The round trip takes four hours, requires zero permits, and guarantees more griffon vultures than humans. GPS is useful: fog can roll up the valley faster than a Post Office queue in December, and every saddle looks identical when the broom flowers are out.

Spring brings purple orchids and the risk of shredded shins from Spanish broom thorns; autumn smells of damp chestnut leaf and gunmetal sky. Mid-July is furnace-hot—daytime 38 °C, night-time 25 °C—so if you must come then, start walking at dawn and finish by eleven, when even the lizards seek shade.

Calories and conversation

There is no shop. Zero. The bakery in the next village, Matillas, opens Thursday to Saturday, sells out by ten, and will not break a twenty-euro note. Stock up in Guadalajara before you leave the A-2: bread, cheese that can survive a warm boot, tomatoes that bounce, and at least two litres of water per person. The single bar—really somebody’s front room with a beer tap and a 1993 Madrid football calendar—keeps irregular hours. Knock loudly; if Consuelo appears you can buy a caña for €1.20 and a plate of chorizo slices for €3. If nobody answers, sit on the bench outside and enjoy the silence that tastes of thyme and dust.

For a proper meal drive eight kilometres down the corkscrew GU-186 to Hostal Rijujama in Matillas. Weekday menú del día is €14 and includes roast lamb, wine and dessert; ring ahead if you dislike blood sausage, they’ll swap in pisto manchego (pepper-and-aubergine stew) without fuss. Closer, but only just, Bar Justi in Jadraque does grilled chicken and chips for the unadventurous, though you will still get a bowl of garlic soup whether you ordered it or not.

When the village stretches its legs

Torremocha’s social calendar is shorter than a London summer. The feast of San Miguel on 29 September is the only date that reliably pulls former residents back from Madrid and Zaragoza. Expect a mass at noon, a free pour of local wine outside the church, and a communal paella cooked in a pan the size of a satellite dish. Visitor numbers quadruple—to perhaps eighty—so if you crave atmosphere without elbowing, arrive the evening before and stake out the one picnic table in the square. Fireworks are modest: two rockets and a box of sparklers let off by the mayor’s nephew, health-and-safety forms nowhere in sight.

Winter is another matter. The road is routinely gritted but not until after 9 a.m.; if snow arrives overnight you may be stuck until the plough lumbers up from Sigüenza. Daytime highs hover round 5 °C, nights drop to –8 °C, and heating inside village houses is wood-burning only. Book a rural cottage with sealed windows or accept that your Yorkshire-born notion of “bracing” will be tested.

Getting here (and away)

From Madrid-Barajas it is 135 km: A-2 east to Guadalajara, exit 55 for the N-320 towards Sigüenza, then the GU-186 for the final 25 km of switchbacks. The tarmac is good, the guardrails occasional, the vertigo optional. Fill the tank at the Repsol outside Azuqueca; the last fuel is in Sigüenza and Sunday closures are sacred. There is no bus, no taxi rank, and Uber drivers politely decline once they Google the route. If you insist on public transport, take a Renfe regional train from Madrid-Chamartín to Sigüenza (1 h 15 min, €12–€25) and pre-book a taxi for the 35-minute onward ride (€40, phone +34 649 123 456). Mention you are going to Torremocha or the driver will assume the larger Torremocha del Campo and charge extra for the detour.

Mobile coverage is patchy: Vodafone dies at the 900 m contour, Movistar clings on in the church porch, O2 is fantasy. Download offline maps and tell someone your ETA—mountain rescue is volunteer-based and they will invoice you afterwards.

Worth it?

Only if you prefer empty skylines to souvenir stalls, and sheep bells to Spotify. Come for a night and you may spend half of it wondering why the village still exists; stay for three and you start measuring your own footprint against a place that needs nothing more than gravity to keep its roofs on. Torremocha de Jadraque will not change your life, but it might recalibrate your noise threshold—and, for some, that is holiday enough.