Puebla de Montalbán (La)

The brick bell-tower of San Miguel appears first, rising above wheat fields that shimmer like pale gold in the heat. From the A-40 motorway it looks almost too perfect — a geometric slash of terracotta against a sky so blue it feels staged. That is La Puebla de Montalbán’s greeting: no billboards, no industrial estates, just a medieval tower announcing that you have left twenty-first-century Spain behind.

At 453 metres above sea-level the village sits on a slight ridge where the River Tajo meets the first folds of the Toledo hills. Romans, Visigoths and an important Jewish community all recognised the vantage point; what they left is a compact grid of cobbled lanes that still follows the tenth-century Islamic parcel plan. Park south of the Plaza Mayor — the tarmac is free and you will not need the car again until you leave.

The Plaza That Film Location Scouts Love

Step under the stone arcade and the temperature drops five degrees. The rectangular square is flanked by wooden balconies painted ox-blood red and supported by granite columns worn smooth by five centuries of market-day shoulders. On Tuesdays farmers from the surrounding vega spread tarpaulins of saffron bulbs and strings of Choricero peppers across the flagstones; the scent is earthy, paprika-sharp, unmistakably Castilian.

British visitors often mutter that the scene feels “cinematically Spanish” — and they are right. The square doubled for seventeenth-century Seville in the 1996 BBC adaptation of La Celestina. A tiny two-room museum at No. 6 preserves storyboard stills; ring the bell opposite and the caretaker will shuffle over with the key (€2, cash only). Inside you will find costumes, a frayed script and the surprising information that Stephen Mangan’s first television role was as a lovesick nobleman right here.

Loafers should claim a wrought-iron table at Café de la Parra, order a café con leche and watch the village conduct its business: lottery tickets sold from a tin, bread unloaded from wicker baskets, the priest sprinting across the corner with surplice flapping. Prices are pre-inflationary — coffee still costs €1.20 and the complimentary mantecado biscuit is baked by the owner’s sister.

Churches, Convents and a Palace You Cannot Enter

From the square every route is uphill; the gradients are short but thigh-testing. Two minutes north brings you to the parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Paz, a hybrid of mudéjar brick and sixteenth-century stone whose tower you saw from the motorway. The west door opens at 11 a.m.; arrive earlier and you will be kept waiting by a sacristan who believes timetables are for weaker temperaments. Inside, the air smells of beeswax and extinguished candles. A single stained-glass window throws turquoise light onto a Flemish tapestry of the Virgin that locals insist was “found floating down the Tajo during a flood” — the sort of claim that makes historians sigh and photographers reach for their cameras.

Around the corner the Conceptionist nuns sell dulces through a wooden turntable that would delight fans of Call the Midwife. Marzipan empiñonados, lemon-glazed pestiños and feather-light huesos de santo disappear into paper bags with no eye contact and only the faintest rustle of fabric. Bring coins; they do not give change and will simply push back whatever they consider excessive.

Higher still, the Palacio de los Duques de Escalona dominates a small rise. The façade is pure fifteenth-century bluster — machicolated cornice, coats of arms, narrow windows designed for pouring boiling oil on bothersome commoners. These days it is a private residence whose elderly owner reportedly opens one salon each September for the local charity raffle. Otherwise you must content yourself with craning your neck from the outside, a reminder that Spain’s grandees still guard their privacy with ancestral stubbornness.

River, Plain and the Pleasure of Doing Very Little

Descend the eastern slope and within ten minutes the tarmac gives way to a dirt track that follows an irrigation ditch to the Tajo itself. The river is wide here, slow and olive-green, fringed by poplars and the occasional heron. A rough path continues south for 7 km to the ruined Roman bridge at Algodor; in April the banks are carpeted with wild orchids, in July the only colour is the flash of a kingfisher. There are no signposts, no rubbish bins and, gloriously, no mobile signal.

Back in the village the afternoon belongs to siesta. Shutters clatter closed at 2 p.m.; even the dogs seem to yawn in unison. If you need occupation, the ethnographic centre inside the old granary displays a 1943 Fordson tractor that local lads drove to Madrid for General Franco’s victory parade — and somehow drove back again. Entrance is free but you must ask for the key at the town hall opposite; the caretaker will accompany you, partly for security, partly for company.

What to Eat and When to Eat It

Come 3 p.m. the bars on the square drag tables into the shade and dish up comida casera at village prices. La Fonda del Palacio does a three-course menú del día for €12 that begins with pisto manchego (a sweet-pepper ratatouille topped with a fried egg) and ends with arroz con leche thick enough to stand a spoon in. Meat-eaters should try the carne en salsa — beef shin slow-cooked in tomato and Tempranillo until it collapses under the fork. Vegetarians are not an afterthought: the same wine sauce is used for alcachofas a la montesina, globe artichokes braised with saffron and mint.

Wine comes from Argés, 18 km away, and is light enough for lunchtime without provoking a nap that lasts until dusk. A glass costs less than the Guardian back home; buy a bottle to take away and the barman will rinse out a plastic water bottle and fill it from the barrel. No one here has heard of tasting notes.

Fiestas, Furnaces and the Ferocity of August

Visit in late January and you will collide with the fiestas of Nuestra Señora de la Paz: processions, brass bands, and a ronda where villagers dance in the square until the thermometer touches freezing. The atmosphere is neighbourly rather than touristic — expect to be handed a glass of anis by someone’s grandmother and quizzed about Brexit.

August is hotter and noisier. The cultural week organises open-air cinema, flamenco workshops and a concurso de paellas in which every household enters a cauldron the size of a satellite dish. Temperatures can reach 42 °C; the council hoses down the streets at dusk to cool the air, releasing clouds of steam that smell of warm pine. If you dislike crowds or value sleep, book elsewhere. Spring and autumn are ideal: the wheat is either emerald young or stubble gold, and the light turns the brickwork peach-soft.

Getting There, Getting Out

La Puebla sits 73 km southwest of Madrid and 38 km from Toledo. There is no railway; buses leave Toledo’s Estación de Autobuses at 07:45 and 16:00, taking 55 minutes and costing €4.95 each way. A hire car is simpler: take the A-40 from Madrid, exit at km 68 and follow the CM-410 for 9 minutes. Petrol stations are scarce once you leave the motorway; fill up at the Repsol in Bargas.

Accommodation is limited. The three-star Hotel El Cardenal has 28 rooms arranged around a shaded courtyard where nightingales sing through summer evenings. Doubles start at €65 including garage parking and a breakfast of churros fetched still warm from the café next door. Budget travellers can rent a spare room from the village casa rural scheme — the tourist office beside the town hall keeps a list and will telephone on your behalf, usually while insisting you take a seat and accept a glass of water.

Departing Without the Usual Souvenir Regret

Leave before 10 a.m. and the square belongs to delivery vans and pigeons. The bakery will wrap half a dozen rosquillas de vino — doughnut rings flavoured with aniseed and lemon zest — in waxed paper that slowly translucent with oil. They will last until Gatwick and taste better than anything in Duty Free.

La Puebla de Montalbán offers no blockbuster museum, no postcard beach, no boutique wineries. What it does offer is the Spain that Spaniards keep for themselves: a place where lunch is still the main event, where history is lived in rather than cordoned off, and where the only soundtrack is church bells and clacking dominoes. Turn up, slow down, and let the village do the rest.