Alcabón

The bell in the tower of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción strikes eleven, and the only other sound is the wind pushing across 500 metres of flat plateau. From the bench outside the church, you can see the entire village: whitewashed houses, single-storey for the most part, their wooden doors painted the same deep green that the council uses for the litter bins. A man in overalls coaxes a reluctant irrigation pipe into the back of a pick-up. Nobody is in a hurry.

Alcabón sits 534 metres above sea level on the Mesa de Ocaña, forty kilometres west of Toledo. The height is modest by Spanish standards—no snow-capped drama here—but it is enough to lift the village clear of the oppressive summer heat that suffocates Madrid an hour away. Winter mornings can drop below freezing; summer afternoons top out at 34 °C but the air stays dry, and dusk brings instant relief. If you are planning to walk the farm tracks that radiate north towards Velada and south towards the abandoned railway, carry water between May and October. From November to March you will need a fleece by four o’clock.

A Grid Drawn by Ploughs, Not Planners

The streets were laid out when wheat was more valuable than architecture. Everything aligns to the cardinal points so the threshing winds could sweep through the grain stores. Even today the municipal map looks like a half-finished chessboard: Calle Real, Calle Nueva, Calle del Medio. House numbers rarely reach 30. At the centre sits the Plaza Mayor, a rectangle of packed earth and cheap concrete pavers shaded by four plane trees. The bar on the corner, La Posada, charges €1.20 for a caña and opens at seven in the morning for the men who work the cooperative olive press. Order a coffee and you will get a glass of water served first—no charge—because that is the custom.

The church tower was begun in 1547 and finished when the money ran out, which explains the change in stone colour two-thirds of the way up. Inside, the retablo is gilded but peeling; a side chapel contains the village’s only acknowledged masterpiece, a fifteenth-century Flemish panel of the Virgin that turned up in a farm shed in 1932. Mass is at noon on Sundays, amplified by a single 1970s loudspeaker that crackles like a broken kettle. Visitors are welcome, but flash photography is frowned upon by the sacristan, who keeps the key on a length of orange baler twine.

Bread, Oil and the Occasional Partridge

There is no Michelin list in Alcabón. What you eat depends on the day you arrive. Tuesday and Friday are baking days at Horno San Roque on Calle Nueva; the bread is sold still hot, and the crust survives for exactly twelve hours. Take a loaf to the olive-oil cooperative on the edge of town and they will fill a one-litre plastic bottle for €6 from the stainless-steel tank labelled “Primera Presión”. That combination—bread, oil and a pinch of salt—is lunch for half the village.

Game season runs mid-October to late January. If you see hand-written signs saying “Se vende perdiz” taped to lamp-posts, follow them to a back door where a woman in an apron will weigh frozen partridge portions on a bathroom scale. The local recipe involves bay leaves, vinegar and a splash of the thick Manchegan beer that comes in one-litre cans. Restaurants? There are two: La Posada does a three-course menú del día for €11 (wine included) but only if three or more people ask for it; Casa Juan opposite the church opens at weekends and serves gazpacho manchego—the winter version with rabbit, not the cold tomato soup Brits expect.

Walking Without a Summit

The landscape refuses to rise. Every path is level, straight and edged with wheat stubble or olive groves that stretch to a horizon you can measure with an outstretched thumb. The most popular circuit leaves from the cemetery gate, follows the Camino de los Molinos for 6 km to an abandoned watermill, then cuts back along the service track for the high-tension power lines. Allow two hours; boots are overkill, trainers suffice. Spring brings poppies and the last of the wild asparagus; autumn smells of disturbed thyme and diesel from the combines. There is no shade—none—so start early or bring a hat that ties under the chin; the wind has stolen dozens of caps and wedged them in the lower branches of the olives.

Cyclists can follow the old railway bed south-east to Calera y Chozas; the gravel is compact, the gradients negligible, and you will share the route only with crested larks. A mountain bike is pointless—think hybrid or sturdy touring frame. Carry a spare tube; the nearest shop that stocks 700×35 tyres is in Torrijos, 18 km away.

When the Village Comes Back to Life

Fiestas begin on 15 August with the Día de la Virgen. The single traffic light is wrapped in bunting, and the plaza fills with temporary bars selling plastic cups of beer for €1 and plates of migas—fried breadcrumbs with garlic and grapes—at €2 a portion. A foam machine is installed for toddlers; teenage girls parade in dresses bought online from Valencia. At midnight there is a fireworks display that lasts exactly eight minutes and sets off at least one car alarm. Book accommodation early: the nearest guest house has four rooms, and the next nearest is in Bargas, 25 km away.

January brings San Antón. Bonfires are lit on the edge of the village, and anyone who owns a dog, horse or donkey brings it to be blessed outside the church. The priest uses an aspergillum made from a plastic lemonade bottle; the animals tolerate the sprinkle, then bolt for the bread rolls handed out by the village baker. It is the one morning of the year when traffic backs up along the CM-4101—perhaps twenty vehicles.

Getting Here, Staying Over, Getting Out

Madrid-Barajas is ninety minutes by hire car: A-42 south to Illescas, then AP-41 west to Ocaña, finally the CM-4101 north. Public transport exists but requires monastic patience: a daily bus leaves Estación Sur at 15:30, changes at Torrijos, and deposits you in Alcabón at 18:10. The return leg departs 06:45, which explains why most visitors come with their own wheels.

There is no hotel. The four-room guest house (Casa Rural La Torre, €55 double, shared kitchen) faces the church and locks its front door at 23:00. The alternative is to stay in Torrijos or Ocaña and drive in for the day. Either way, fill the tank before Sunday; the village petrol pump closed in 2009 and the nearest station is 22 km west on the N-403.

Alcabón will never feature on a list of “Spain’s most beautiful villages”. It offers no ravines, no castles, no artisan ice-cream. What it does offer is a calibration of scale: a place small enough that the baker remembers how you like your coffee, large enough to support a chemist, a doctor and a Friday-night football match under floodlights powered by a generator that hums like a distant tractor. Turn up expecting spectacle and you will leave after an hour. Stay for the bread, the oil and the sound of wheat rustling in a wind that has crossed half of Castile, and you might find yourself synchronising your watch to the church bell that still measures the day in centuries rather than seconds.