Roda de Eresma

The View from the Edge

From Roda de Eresma's highest lane, the Sierra de Guadarrama rises like a saw blade 25 kilometres west. The peaks—La Mujer Muerta, Siete Picos, Peñalara—change colour with the season: violet at dawn, white after December snow, ochre when the cereal fields ripen beneath. This is not a mountain village; at 960 metres it sits lower than Sheffield, yet the altitude still delivers sharp mornings and air that carries the scent of thyme from surrounding pasture.

Two hundred and sixty residents occupy stone houses arranged around a church whose square tower leans slightly north, the result of centuries of Castilian wind. There's no main square to speak of, just a widening where the road bends past the former schoolhouse (now closed) and the bread van stops at 11 a.m. on Tuesdays. Visitors expecting half-timbered perfection leave disappointed. Those who arrive with time to spare find something rarer: a working grain-and-sheep parish that hasn't rearranged itself for cameras.

What Passes for a High Street

The village's only commercial premises is La Centralita de la Abuela, a three-room guesthouse created from the old telephone exchange. Proprietor Marisol keeps the original 1950s switchboard in the hallway and serves coffee in china cups that belonged to her mother. Doubles start at €55 including breakfast—toast rubbed with tomato, local olive oil, and thick hot chocolate that defeats even energetic hikers. She can also arrange packed lunches (€8) if you ask the night before; there is no shop, and the nearest supermarket lies eight kilometres away in Carbonero el Mayor.

Walk south along the paved track and the settlement dissolves into agricultural grid: wheat, barley, and the occasional plot of chickpeas. Every third field contains a corrugated iron shelter for sheep; the bells sound like distant wind chimes when the flock moves. This is the Eresma river basin, a shallow valley that collects runoff from the Guadarrama and funnels it towards Segovia's Roman aqueduct twenty-five minutes' drive south. The river itself is little more than a reed-lined stream here, but the name has clung to the parish since Mozarabic times.

Paths That Remember Drovers

Four footpaths radiate from the church, all following medieval livestock routes. The most straightforward is the 6-kilometre loop to Valle de Tabladillo, marked sporadically with yellow dashes on gateposts. It crosses two stone bridges—one Roman, one 19th-century—and passes the ruined cortijo of Los Pájaros where storks nest on the chimney each spring. After rain the clay sticks to boots like wet biscuit; in July the same surface turns to dust that coats legs up to the knee.

Serious walkers link these tracks into a 19-kilometre figure-of-eight that takes in the neighbouring hamlets of Migueláñez and Ortigosa. Navigation requires the free Wikiloc app; waymarking stops at municipal boundaries and mobile coverage is patchy beneath poplar plantations. The compensation is solitude: on a Saturday in May you might meet one cyclist and a farmer on a quad bike. Carry at least a litre of water per person—there are no fountains outside the village and summer temperatures touch 34 °C before noon.

Eating: Bring an Appetite and a Plan

Roda itself offers no lunch menu. The closest asador, El Hidalgo, sits on the N-603 in Carbonero and does a respectable cordero asado (€22 per person, minimum two). Locals instead recommend driving twelve minutes to Brieva where Casa Carmen serves judiones—giant butter beans stewed with chorizo and pig's ear—followed by soplillos, a meringue scented with cinnamon. They open weekends only; telephone 921 50 00 48 before setting out because when the beans run out, the kitchen closes.

Back in the village, evening social life centres on the porch of the agricultural co-op. Someone usually opens a bottle of Ribera del Duero at 8 p.m.; visitors who bring plastic cups are welcomed into the circle. The conversation is strictly Spanish, slow Castilian with the final 's' intact, and topics rotate between rainfall, wheat prices, and whether Real Valladolid will ever return to La Liga.

Seasons Revealed

April delivers green wheat and nesting storks. By late June the stalks turn gold and harvesters work floodlights after midnight to beat the forecast storm. August is hot, still, and mostly empty—many families decamp to cooler stone houses in Segovia's old quarter, returning only for the fiesta on the 15th when a portable disco operates until 4 a.m. and the priest hands out blessed bread from a tractor trailer.

October belongs to mushrooms. Boletus edulis fetch €40 a kilo at city markets, so outsiders with wicker baskets are viewed with suspicion. Picking is legal along public footpaths but not within pine plantations owned by the municipality; guards issue €150 fines and confiscate knives. The safest tactic is to accept an invitation from a local—several guesthouse owners organise Saturday morning walks, keeping half the haul in payment.

Winter brings snow visible on the peaks but rarely settles in the streets. Instead an iron frost glazes the fields; ewes give birth inside open barns and the smell of woodsmoke drifts across the ridge from isolated farmhouses. January daytime temperatures hover around 6 °C—colder than Madrid thanks to altitude—so bring a fleece for the afternoon walk. On clear nights the Milky Way arches overhead with an intensity impossible in southern England.

Getting There, Getting Away

No public transport reaches Roda. From London, fly into Madrid-Barajas, take the half-hourly Cercanías train to Segovia (€12.90), then collect a hire car—Avis and Europcar have booths outside the station. The final 28 kilometres follow the N-603, a fast road that cuts through wheat plateau before dipping into the Eresma valley. Petrol is cheaper at the Repsol on the Segovia ring road than at motorway services.

Drivers should note: Google Maps overestimates travel times on CL- local roads by roughly 20%. Sat-nav also misses the village's new bypass; ignore the instruction to turn right at the abandoned petrol station and continue straight for 400 metres until the church tower appears. Parking is unrestricted but narrow—leave the car on the verge opposite the cemetery where the track widens.

The Quiet Sell

Roda de Eresma will never feature on glossy regional brochures. It has no castle, no Michelin listing, no artisan chocolate workshop. What it offers instead is a calibration point for travellers who have grown weary of Spain's costas and cities. Stand beside the dry-stone wall at sunset, watch the sierra blush pink, and the country reveals an older rhythm measured by threshing floors, saints' days, and the bleat of lambs bargaining for one more hour of light.