Aldeanueva del Codonal

The church bell strikes noon and the only reply is a dog barking somewhere beyond the wheat. At 850 metres above sea level, on the roof of Old Castile, Aldeanueva del Codonal feels closer to the sky than to anywhere else. The name itself is a giveaway: “new village of the broom”, a reference to the yellow-flowered retama that still splashes colour across the tracks each April. It is a place that measures time by harvests, not headlines.

A horizon of adobe and silence

Roughly 120 people remain year-round, enough to keep the bar open and the wheat stubble burning in July. Adobe walls two feet thick line lanes barely wider than a tractor, their ochre tones warmed by granite corners salvaged from long-collapsed shepherd huts. Peek over any low door and you’ll spot the ghost of a wine cellar—tiny square vents just above ground level where barrels once breathed before phylloxera wiped out the vines in the 1920s. The church, tall but plain, does not try to compete with Segovia’s cathedral thirty-five minutes away; instead its weathered stone and timber roof trusses tell the quieter story of parish life funded by wool and grain rather than silver from the Indies.

Walk east for ten minutes and the houses give way to open plateau. Soil is thin, almost chalky, and the wind carries the scent of dry straw and wild thyme. In June the fields shimmer gold; by late August they are already turned under, revealing white chalk flecks that look like snow from a distance. This is classic segovian steppe country, favourite hunting ground of hen harriers and short-toed eagles. Bring binoculars at dawn and you may see a great bustard stalking between the furrows, oblivious to the modern world.

The sheer joy of doing very little

There are no ticket offices, audio guides or craft markets. What you get instead is space. Farm tracks, once drove roads for merino sheep, now serve as walking routes that loop for 5 km, 10 km or however far you fancy before looping back to the village fountain. Gradient is gentle but the meseta sun is not; even in May you’ll need two litres of water and a wide-brimmed hat. Locals set out at daybreak or wait until the shadows lengthen after six; follow their lead and you’ll avoid the midday furnace.

Autumn brings the mushroom moment. After the first September storms, ringless honeys and bay boletes push up beneath the holm oaks on the western slope. Picking is tolerated provided you stay off private seeding plots and carry no more than 3 kg per person—an informal rule enforced by raised eyebrows rather than police. If you’re unsure which fungi will ruin your weekend, ask in the bar; someone’s cousin usually fancies a morning stomp and a share of the haul.

Roast lamb and doughnuts by the dozen

Food here is farmhouse fare, scaled down for two diners rather than twenty harvest hands. Cordero asado arrives as a quarter-lamb, slow-cooked in a wood-fired oven until the skin crackles like thin toffee. Expect to pay €18–20 at the only restaurant open mid-week; order ahead—they only fire up the oven if they know you’re coming. The alternative is cocido segoviano, a three-part theatre of broth, chickpeas and meat that defeats most appetites before the final course. If you survive that, homemade rosquillas appear: anise-scented doughnuts sold by the plastic bag from kitchen counters for €4. They taste of nothing much for the first bite, then quietly addictive.

Beer choices are limited but improving; the barman keeps a couple of bottles from Segovia’s own Frutos del Guadarrama brewery in the fridge behind the tortilla. Wine comes from Valdepeñas further south—no local vines since the phylloxera disaster—served in 250 ml carafes that look like laboratory glassware. You can ask for Rioja, but you’ll pay city prices.

Getting here (and why a car is non-negotiable)

Madrid-Barajas is the sensible gateway from the UK: Ryanair, easyJet, BA and Iberia all run daily flights, with fares below £70 return outside school holidays. Collect a hire car from Terminal 1 and you’re on the A-50 within twenty minutes; after 75 km of largely empty motorway you peel off at Villacastín, then follow the CL-501 for 12 km of winding but decent road. Total driving time: about 75 minutes. Public transport exists only in theory—one bus a day from Segovia departs too late for connections and returns too early for dinner.

Accommodation is thin on the ground. Solaz del Moros, five kilometres outside the village, offers eight stone cottages around a fortified manor; doubles from €90 including a formidable breakfast of local chorizo and honey. Closer to Segovia, Hospedium Hacienda Las Cavas has more rooms but loses the night-time silence. Book ahead for weekends and fiesta weeks; otherwise you may find yourself driving back to the city after dinner, a prospect no one relishes on narrow Spanish country roads.

The fiesta that re-populates the village

For forty-eight hours around 15 August the population quadruples. Returning emigrants park hatchbacks where wheat grew in July, and the plaza hosts a makeshift bar under fairy lights. Proceedings start with a Saturday evening mass, the church packed tighter than Christmas Eve. A brass band—trumpets slightly out of tune—leads a procession round the single-block centre, followed by children wielding sparklers despite the heat. At midnight a low-key disco pumps 1990s Spanish pop into the sky until the Guardia Civil suggest winding things down at three. Sunday brings a paella the size of a tractor tyre and a lottery for legs of lamb. By Monday morning the village exhales, shutters close, and the wheat fields reclaim the soundtrack.

Winter is a different proposition. Daytime temperatures hover around 5 °C, nights drop to –8 °C, and the wind scours across exposed plateau. Roads are gritted promptly—this is Castile, not Andalucía—but drifting snow can still isolate the hamlet for a day or two. Come then only if you crave absolute stillness and don’t mind heating your rental cottage with a wood stove whose instructions are in Spanish.

Aldeanueva del Codonal will never feature on glossy posters of Spain. It offers no selfies with Moorish palaces, no dive-bar flamenco, no beach club beats. What it does give you is a calibration point: a place where the 21st century feels negotiable, where lunch is dictated by the oven rather than the clock, and where the night sky still spills Milky Way across the wheat. Bring walking boots, an appetite and a tolerance for quiet. Then drive away before you get too used to the silence.