La Riba de Escalote

The church bell still tolls at noon, even though only nine people remain to hear it. At 1,030 metres, La Riba de Escalote sits high enough for the air to feel thinner, sharper, and for the endless plateau of Soria to unfurl below like a creased brown tablecloth. Stone walls the colour of burnt toast lean into the slope, their rooflines sagging under centuries of snow and sun. Nobody restored them for Instagram; they simply never fell down.

The Village That Didn’t Leave

Drive south-east from Soria city for forty minutes and the tarmac shrinks to a single-lane ribbon. The last five kilometres are a negotiation with sheep: they own the SO-920, you don’t. Phone signal flickers out somewhere around the 900-metre contour; by the time the first houses appear, Google Maps has given up and the wind has taken over. What you see is what was left behind when the jobs disappeared—no interpretive centre, no craft shop, just a cluster of limestone dwellings wedged between wheat fields and sky.

The census lists nine inhabitants, but on a weekday in March you may meet only three: the woman who keeps the key to the church, the shepherd on a quad bike, and the retired teacher who waters his onions twice a day. They will nod, perhaps say “Buenos días,” and return to their task. Tourism is not refused; it simply hasn’t arrived.

What Passes for Sights

The parish church of San Pedro is locked unless mass is imminent—usually the second Sunday of the month at eleven o’clock. Its porch is deep enough to shelter a tractor, and the sandstone arch still bears the scars of 1808 when French dragoons used the doorway for target practice. Peer through the keyhole and you’ll see a single nave, bare walls, a Baroque retable gilded with the proceeds of a good wheat harvest in 1764. That is all. The building’s real charm is acoustic: stand outside when the bell rings and the note rolls down the valley for a full seven seconds.

Beyond the church, the settlement unravels into lanes wide enough for a mule. Adobe walls bulge like loaves left too long to prove; timber doorways are only shoulder-high, relics from a time when people were shorter and winters colder. One house has a stone tablet dated 1642, another displays a rusted oil mill repurposed as a flowerpot. Nothing is labelled, nothing is for sale. The only commercial signage is a hand-painted board advertising honey at “Casa Ramón,” but Ramón died in 2019 and the honey ran out soon after.

Walking the Empty Map

La Riba works best as a staging post for short, solitary hikes. A farm track drops eastward to the river Escalote, twenty minutes through thyme and frost-rimmed thistle. The water is barely a trickle by late spring, but poplars still manage a thin green line along the bank. Follow the dry stone wall south and you reach a ruined cortijo where storks have built a nest the size of a Fiat 500. From here, a faint path climbs to the ridge at 1,150 metres; the reward is a 270-degree view of cereal steppe and, on clear days, the snow-dusted summits of the Urbión range forty kilometres away.

The circuit back to the village takes ninety minutes. Take water: there is no café, no fountain, and the summer sun at this altitude dehydrates faster than most British walkers expect. In winter, the same route can be impassable: the road from Soria is occasionally closed after snow, and nobody clears it before the farmer needs to feed his lambs.

Eating (Elsewhere)

There is nowhere to buy food, drink, or even a packet of crisps. Pack a picnic in Soria before you set off: the Mercadona on Avenida de Valladolid does decent tortilla slices and will fill a baguette to order. If you must eat hot food, the nearest option is Casa Ignacio, a truckers’ venta on the N-122 twenty-five minutes north. Order the chuletón for two (€38) and they will sear a lamb chop the size of a shoe sole. Vegetarians get a plate of roasted piquillo peppers and no sympathy.

For a quieter meal, drive back to Berlanga de Duero, twelve minutes away, where the bar attached to the petrol station serves soriana soup—garlic, paprika, stale bread and a poached egg—perfect after a windy walk. They close at four o’clock sharp; turn up late and you’ll go hungry.

When Silence Isn’t Golden

Weekends in July and August shatter the spell. Descendants of former residents roll up in SUVs, unload plastic tables and pump reggaetón from Bluetooth speakers. The population can briefly swell to forty, still tiny by any measure but enough to fill the lanes with shouty children and the smell of barbecue lighter fluid. If you came for utter quiet, aim for Tuesday to Thursday outside school holidays. April and late September give you green wheat or stubble fields plus daytime temperatures that don’t fry British skin.

Rain is another spoiler. The clay soil turns to grease within minutes; hiking boots cake in orange mud and the single-track road becomes a toboggan. Check the Soria provincial weather site the night before: if orange warnings flash, stay in your parador and visit the Romanesque chapel at San Baudelio instead.

Beds, or the Lack of Them

You cannot sleep in La Riba. The nearest roof is in Berlanga: the three-star Hotel Villa de Berlanga has rooms from €55, heating that works, and a bar that opens at seven for coffee. The Parador de Soria offers panoramic terraces and a pool, but it’s thirty-five minutes away along a road patrolled by wild boar after dusk. Wild camping is technically illegal and, more importantly, the farmer’s dogs bark all night.

Better to base yourself in Soria and day-trip. The city’s Saturday market sells local cheese—try the soft, smoky Queso de Cámara—while the riverwalk gives you a flat stroll to work off the calories. From there, La Riba is an easy morning outing, after which you can continue to the cliff-top village of Rello for sunset. Rello has walls; La Riba has wind. Between the two you’ll taste the region’s past and its precarious present.

Leave before dusk. The church bell will toll again, purely out of habit. Nobody counts the hours any more, but the sound reminds the plateau that nine stubborn souls are still up there, keeping the lights on—when the generator works.