Adradas

The church bell tolls twelve times, yet only two cars pass through the village during the entire hour. At 1,050 metres above sea level, Adradas sits high enough for the air to carry a sharp edge even in May, and high enough that mobile reception becomes theoretical rather than guaranteed. This is the Soria plateau at its most uncompromising: wheat fields running to every horizon, stone houses the colour of the earth itself, and a silence so complete you can hear your own pulse.

The Arithmetic of Emptiness

Sixty-five residents hold the village census steady, though on weekdays the number of people actually present drops further. Many properties stand locked against the winter wind; others gape open, their roof beams exposed to weather that can swing from 35°C in July to –10°C in January. The arithmetic is brutal: for every inhabitant there are roughly four abandoned threshing floors scattered through the surrounding fields, circular stone platforms now colonised by lichen and the occasional restless cow.

What keeps the place from tipping into complete ruin is a stubborn refusal to perform for visitors. There is no gift shop, no interpretive centre, no brown road sign promising “centro histórico”. Instead, the village offers a different transaction: you bring your own provisions, your own entertainment, your own tolerance for altitude and isolation, and Adradas gives back horizon, light, and the realisation that “nothing to do” can feel like a luxury good.

Stone, Mud, and the Memory of Wine

A five-minute walk defines the built environment. The parish church of San Pedro rises at the top of the only pronounced slope, its belfry patched so many times the masonry resembles a dental record. The nave is kept unlocked; inside, the temperature drops another five degrees and the smell is of candle wax and damp stone. A single pew bears a hand-carved date: 1642. No guide appears to explain the fresco fragments above the altar; interpretation is left to whoever bothered to charge their phone at the previous stop.

Below the church, lanes narrow to shoulder width. Walls here are not the golden limestone of tourist Spain but a composite of whatever the fields yielded: granite chunks, river pebbles, straw-heavy adobe bricks that crumble if you pick at them. Halfway down Calle Real, a timber door hangs off its hinges revealing a wine press the size of a caravan, its screw mechanism seized solid. Until the 1950s villagers cultivated every south-facing slope with vines; phylloxera and rural exodus ended that chapter, but the caves remain, tunnelled into soft bedrock behind houses. Most are padlocked; if you ask at the bar (open 07:00–14:00, irregular afternoons) someone’s cousin may produce a key and a torch, though health-and-safety certificates are notably absent.

Walking the Grid Without a Grid

Ordnance Survey mentality needs recalibrating. There are no way-marked loops, no stiles, no “public footpath” signs nailed to gates. What exists is a lattice of agricultural tracks graded by the council maybe once a decade. Head east past the last street lamp and the tarmac simply stops; beyond that, wheat or barley meets sky in a ruler-straight line. Farmers expect walkers to stick to the tractor ruts and to close any gate they find, whether open or shut—logic that feels reversed until you remember the livestock rules predates Brexit by several centuries.

For a half-day outing, follow the unpaved road signposted “Ctra de Almazán 12 km” (ignore the fact the distance is wrong). After forty minutes the track drops into a shallow ravine where holm oaks provide the only natural shade for miles. Griffon vultures routinely cruise the thermals here; if you’re lucky a Spanish imperial eagle will muscle its way past, scattering the crows. Turn round when the grain silos of Rebollosa de Jadraque appear on the opposite ridge—there’s no café awaiting you there either.

Winter transforms the same route into a different proposition. Snow can arrive overnight in January, and the plateau wind drives it horizontally. The council does clear the main road, eventually, but the agricultural tracks become impassable for anything short of a 4×4 with chains. Visiting between December and March delivers brilliant light and zero crowds, yet also demands carrying water, food, and a thermal blanket like the ones Spanish motorists are legally required to store. Mobile batteries drain faster in the cold; tell someone where you’re going because rescue will not be swift.

Calories and Other Practicalities

Adradas itself has no restaurant, no hotel, no cash machine. The only commerce is the combined bar-shop at number 14 Plaza Mayor, open on the understanding that if the owner feels like closing early, she will. Stock is eclectic: tinned tuna, washing-up liquid, local honey labelled in biro, and beer poured from a tap older than most customers. A coffee costs €1.20 if the machine is working; if it isn’t, the alternative is red wine from a plastic jug at the same price.

The nearest proper meal is twelve kilometres away in Almazán, a market town positioned on the River Duero and the N-II trunk road. Drive, or hitch—locals still practice the custom and will expect conversation about rainfall forecasts in return. Mesón de la Villa (Calle Medinaceli 10) does roast suckling lamb for €22 a portion; portions are built for two, and they won’t flinch if you ask for the mint sauce to be left off.

Rooms? Forget boutique. The regional government lists three “casas rurales” within a 15-minute radius; the one in Adradas sleeps six, costs around €90 per night for the whole house, and requires a €150 deposit against firewood consumption. Booking is through the Soria provincial tourism office, answered by humans on weekdays between 09:00 and 14:00. Bring your own towels; the caretaker’s concept of “fully equipped” stops at four forks and one corkscrew.

When the Wind Drops

Stay overnight and the village recalibrates your sense of time. At dusk swifts wheel above the church tower, then vanish as if switched off. Street lighting amounts to five lamps on timers that shut down at 01:00; after that the sky belongs to the Milky Way and to the occasional truck headlights tracing the distant A-15. The silence is not absolute—dogs bark, a distant generator throbs—but it is spacious enough to make city ears ring with phantom noise.

Dawn brings the same sounds in reverse: cockerels first, then the clank of a farmer feeding goats, finally the bell again. If you climb the track behind the cemetery you can watch the sun lift shadows out of the cereal sea, each row of wheat catching light like rivets on metal. By eight o’clock the temperature differential between valley floor and plateau has stirred up a breeze; by ten the day’s heat haze already trembles. That is the moment to decide—push on towards the ruins of the Roman camp at Dehesa or retreat to the bar for a second coffee while the machine still works.

Either choice is correct. Adradas neither applauds nor complains; it simply continues its slow negotiation with gravity, weather, and the mathematics of staying alive at altitude. Take it or leave it, but don’t expect the village to change its terms.