Juarros de Riomoros

The church bell strikes noon and the only other sound is wheat rustling in the breeze. At 900 metres above sea level, Juarros de Riomoros has no café terrace to sit on, no souvenir shop, not even a cash machine. What it does have is space—rolling Castilian steppe that stretches northwards until the earth bumps against the Cantabrian mountains, and a sky so wide that clouds cast shadows the size of towns.

Most visitors race past on the A-1 motorway, bound for Segovia’s aqueduct or the wine Ribera. Turn off at kilometre 115, however, and a single-lane road wriggles eight kilometres through barley and sunflower plots to reach this stone hamlet of 53 permanent residents. The tarmac stops at the village fountain; beyond that, tracks revert to the same dirt the Romans used to move wheat to their military camps along the Duero.

Stone, adobe and silence

Houses here were built for winter survival, not for display. Walls are thigh-thick, a patchwork of ochre limestone and mud-coloured adobe; roofs sag gently under terracotta half-pipes that have turned lichen-green with age. Doorways are scaled for mules rather than SUVs, and many still have the iron ring where beasts were tethered overnight. Peek through an open gateway and you’ll see the original three-part plan: stable on the ground floor, grain loft above, and a subterranean bodega dug into the cool clay for keeping wine just above freezing point.

The parish church of San Miguel squats at the highest point, a belfry added in 1783 grafted onto a 15th-century nave. It is kept unlocked; inside, the air smells of wax and stone dust, and the only illumination filters through alabaster panes, turning the whitewashed walls the colour of old parchment. Sunday mass is still read at eleven, though the priest has to drive in from Villacastín. If you arrive mid-week, the caretaker’s telephone number is chalked on the door—ring and she’ll appear in house slippers within five minutes.

There are no interpretation boards, no QR codes, no entrance fees. The heritage is the fabric itself, and it is quietly falling apart. Some façades have lost mortar; a 17th-century lintel was recently salvaged by the council after it crashed into the street during a storm. The slow decay is part of the visit: you are seeing Castile before the polish, a living lesson in rural depopulation.

Walking the cereal ocean

Leave the village by any track and within ten minutes you are alone. The caminos form a rough grid that once connected threshing floors; follow the one signed “Ermita del Carrascal” and you drop into a shallow valley where holm oaks give shade to booted eagles. The gradient is gentle—this is high plateau, not alpine—but the altitude means UV is fierce even in April. Carry water; the only bar is back in the square and it opens when the owner feels like it.

Spring brings a brief, almost Irish green that fades to gold by late June. Walk then and you share the path with combine harvesters rather than hikers; drivers will halt, reverse, and let you pass because traffic is thin enough for courtesy. By mid-July the temperature can touch 36 °C by noon, so early starts are sensible. Autumn is the sweet spot: mornings sharp enough to need a fleece, afternoons soft and smelling of crushed fennel, and threshing stubble that turns the earth into a blond, rustling beach.

If you want a target, aim for the abandoned railway five kilometres north. The Salamanca-Burgos line closed in 1985; rails were lifted but the stone sleepers remain, colonised by lichen and nesting wheatears. Stand still and the only sound is the wind pinging on telegraph wires like slack guitar strings.

Night skies and empty tables

Food presents a problem—and an opportunity. The village itself has no restaurant, no shop, not even a bakery. The last grocery shut when its proprietor died in 2019. Self-catering is therefore essential, which in practice means stocking up in Segovia before you arrive. Mercadona on the city’s ring road sells local Segovian beef and the small, buttery chickpeas that taste nothing like the tinned sort in British supermarkets.

For a sit-down lunch, drive 20 minutes to Cantimpalos where Mesón Antonio serves cochinillo (suckling pig) roasted in a wood-fired brick oven whose temperature is judged by the chef’s bare forearm. A quarter portion feeds two and costs €24; house wine from Aranda arrives in a plain glass porrón that you tip from height into your mouth without touching the spout—messy, but it breaks the ice with neighbouring tables who will immediately recommend the chorizo, also made in the village and protected by a denominación de origen.

Back in Juarros, darkness falls like a theatre curtain. At 900 m there is little humidity, so stars sharpen to pinpricks; the Milky Way becomes a smear of chalk across slate. Lay a blanket on the disused threshing floor west of the church and you can watch satellites cruise through Orion. Night-time temperatures drop 12–15 °C below the daytime high even in midsummer, so pack a down jacket.

Where to sleep (and why you should)

Accommodation within the village boundary totals two properties. La Tarja I & II is a pair of 19th-century labourers’ cottages knocked together to make a four-bedroom villa with under-floor heating and a roof terrace that faces the sunset over the cereal sea. Rates hover around £140 per night for the whole house, so if you can assemble a group it becomes cheaper than a Travelodge in Peterborough. The only alternative is an Airbnb called “Villa with pool and mountain views” although the mountains are 60 km away; still, the infinity lip aligns perfectly with the horizon so photographs look suitably cinematic.

Both places leave a welcome basket of local eggs, honey and a bottle of verdejo white from Rueda—gestures that feel personal rather than corporate. Check-in is self-service via a lockbox, which suits travellers arriving on a late flight into Madrid. The drive from Barajas takes 90 minutes on the toll motorway; budget €20 each way in road fees plus another €25 for fuel.

The honest verdict

Juarros de Riomoros will never feature on a “Top Ten Spanish Villages” list. It offers no swimming pool, no craft market, no flamenco nights. Mobile coverage is patchy; Vodafone drops to 3G beside the fountain. What it does offer is a calibration of scale: a reminder that whole communities once lived in rhythm with cereal crops and church bells, and that this rhythm is still audible if you stop long enough to listen. Come with supplies, with time, and—crucially—with company; silence is romantic for about six hours, then it becomes existential. Bring walking boots, a star-finder app, and perhaps a paperback of Laurie Lee. Leave the itinerary blank.