Berlanga de Duero

The castle keep appears first, rising from wheat-coloured plains like a watchtower in a 16th-century engraving. From the SO-20 road it seems almost too perfect: four circular turrets, intact battlements, a single flag snapping above the Duero basin. Then the town itself comes into view—sandstone walls, a Gothic tower, houses packed tight on a limestone ridge 936 metres above sea level. This is Berlanga de Duero, population 800, once the seat of the Dukes of Frías and still stubbornly alive in a province that most Spaniards can’t place on a map.

A Ridge of Renaissance Stone

Berlanga’s builders squeezed every function onto the outcrop. The castle crowns the western tip; the Collegiate church anchors the eastern end; between them a Renaissance wall, built when artillery had already made such defences obsolete, loops downhill to the river Escalote. Walking the ramparts takes twenty minutes and delivers a lesson in geography: brown cereal plains to the south, pine-dark sierras to the north, and a ribbon of green vegetation tracing the river below. The wind arrives unfiltered from the Meseta, so even in May you’ll want a jumper after sundown.

Inside the walls the streets are barely two mules wide. Cobbles are smooth and slippery—trainers advised, flip-flops suicidal. House fronts carry the scars of noble ambition: coats of arms chipped by weather, iron balconies grafted onto medieval stone, Renaissance portals narrowing suddenly into Tudor-dark hallways. There is no souvenir tat, no English-menu hawkers, no “authentic” gastro-pub. When a coach party is absent you can stand in the porticoed main square and hear only the swish of the bakery’s plastic curtain and the click of the town clock striking the half hour.

What the Stones Say (If You Arrive Early)

The castle opens at ten sharp and takes cash only—€6, coins appreciated. Ring the bell; a caretaker appears. If you’re lucky Jesús, the English-speaking guide, is free and will walk you through the 1476 keep, the 1580 artillery platform and the 1974 film set where Raquel Welch once ran across the battlements in a velvet tabard. Tours are spontaneous; in high August you may wait twenty minutes, in February you may have to phone the ayuntamiento the day before. Even if the interior is locked the perimeter path is worth the climb: larks overhead, stonecrops sprouting from mortar, and a 270-degree panorama that stretches to the snowcaps of the Urbión range 60 km away.

Back in the centre the Collegiate of Nuestra Señora del Mercado demands longer than a cursory glance. The west portal is pure late-Gothic flourish, but step inside and the mood changes to Renaissance swagger: a carved altarpiece gilded with American gold, frescos of looping vines and pomegranate trees, a side chapel whose floor slabs list the Berlanga dead by century. English information is non-existent; a Spanish leaflet costs one euro and the sacristan will unlock the tower for another two if you ask before noon. The climb is 122 steps, narrow and warm; the reward is a bird’s-eye plan of the town’s roofscape—ochre tiles, stone chimneys, stork nests balanced on every available turret.

Monday Morning Realities

Berlanga makes no concessions to the “everything open” culture of the costas. On Mondays and Tuesdays outside August the bakery, the two food shops and both restaurants shut. The castle still admits visitors, but after your history fix you will be hungry. Pack emergency bocadillos or drive 15 km to San Esteban de Gormaz where the supermarkets stay open. Likewise there is no cash machine in the village; the nearest ATM is beside the church in San Esteban, so fill your wallet in Soria before you turn onto the SO-20.

These closures are less irritating if you treat them as a warning label: Berlanga is not a theme park. Watching an elderly resident shuffle across the square carrying yesterday’s newspaper and tomorrow’s bread is part of the programme. The rhythm is slow enough that the bakery assistant will wrap your torta de Berlanga—an aniseed sponge the colour of Madeira cake—and ask whether you prefer the crusty end or the soft middle slice.

Plains, River and Empty Tracks

The landscape beyond the walls explains why nobles chose this rock in the first place. To the south the cereal ocean ripples like a beige Atlantic; in June the wheat is waist-high and the poppies throw red distress flares. A signed 7 km loop drops from the castle gate, follows the Escalote gorge and climbs back through holm-oak scrub. There is no shade bar the river corridor, so start early or wait until the sun has slipped behind the castle. Bootprints are usually your own; the only company may be a shepherd on a quad bike and his eight mastiffs padding behind.

Spring brings carpets of purple crocus and the distant cough of stags in the pine woods; autumn smells of wet earth and mushroom rot. Winter is crisp, often snow-dusted, and the castle looks genuinely medieval when the battlements wear white. Summer days top 34 °C but nights drop to 16 °C—bring a fleece for the evening paseo.

Eating Like a Minor Noble

Food is Castilian solid: roast suckling lamb, pork scratchings that shatter like toffee, wine from the nearby Ribera del Duero that arrives in short, heavy glasses. The local kitchen assumes hunger. At Asador La Hospedería a chuletón for two weighs in at 1.2 kg and costs €48; order it medio, not well-done, or the chef will despair. Migas pastoriles—fried breadcrumbs with grapes and pancetta—arrive in a clay dish the size of a satellite dish and taste like Christmas stuffing without the sage. Vegetarians survive on tortilla and the excellent local rosé, but this is not tofu territory.

If the main restaurants are shuttered, the bar tucked under the soportales serves raciones of cheese and chorizo until the cook’s family finishes lunch. Prices are mainland Spain, not Madrid: a coffee still costs €1.30, a caña €1.50, and the tortilla wedge €2.80. Tipping is the loose change on the saucer.

Leaving the Ridge

The drive back to Soria, 45 minutes east, cuts through wheat checkerboards and sudden pine plantations. British number plates are rare enough that farm workers wave from tractor cabs. In August the medieval market weekend fills the streets with torch-lit processions and stallholders in velour doublets; even then you may share the castle with only a dozen visitors. The rest of the year Berlanga simply gets on with being itself—a fortified ridge that once bossed half of Castile, now content to let the storks rule the sky and the wheat whisper at the walls.

Come for the stones, stay for the silence, but remember the Monday rule and bring cash. If the castle door is bolted, walk the walls anyway: the view is free and the wind reminds you how far the Meseta stretches beyond the last souvenir shop.