Tabanera la Luenga

The cereal fields stop dead at the village edge, as if someone had drawn a line across the plateau. Beyond it, Tabanera La Luenga runs for almost a kilometre in a thin stripe of stone and terracotta, never more than two streets wide. From the nearest hill the place looks like a single, elongated farmhouse that forgot to end—hence the nickname la luenga, “the long one”, first muttered by shepherd's centuries ago and now printed on road signs forty kilometres north-east of Segovia.

At 900 metres above sea level the air is thinner and cleaner than on the coastal plains. Spring arrives two weeks later than in Madrid, autumn lingers until the first cierzo wind sweeps down from the Aragonese mountains, and winter can lock the village in for days when the surrounding tracks glaze over. Even in July the nights drop below 15 °C, so the wheat stubble creaks underfoot at dawn and swallows circle late, feeding on insects lifted by the thermals.

There is no centre to speak of, just a parish church, a hand-pump that still draws water, and a bench occupied by whoever last finished work. Visitors expecting a plaza mayor with cafés will find instead a widening of the main lane where the tarmac peters out into gravel. Mobile reception flickers; the only reliable bar is eight kilometres away in Carbonero el Mayor. What the village does offer is space—huge Castilian skies, horizons that slide away like polished steel, and the kind of silence that makes your ears ring.

Stone, Adobe and the Smell of Rain on Earth

Houses are built from what the plateau provides: ochre limestone for the lower courses, adobe bricks above, and clay roof tiles fired in local kilns that closed in the 1970s. Many still have wooden granaries balanced on stone stilts—hórreos in the Leonese style—where maize was once stored away from mice. The doors are wide enough for a mule cart, the thresholds worn into shallow bowls by generations of boots. Peek through an open gateway and you will almost certainly see a bodega: a cellar dug three metres down, its walls blackened by the lamp that guided the last barrel of last year's wine.

Because the village never attracted second-home buyers, restoration has been piecemeal and pragmatic. One facade might be freshly pointed, the next still flaking its original limewash. The effect is honest rather than pretty, a working landscape rather than a museum. Photographers arrive with long lenses, not pastel filters, and leave delighted by the texture of flaking plaster against bronze wheat.

Walking the Grid without a Grid

Tabanera makes an ideal base for linear walks that hop between abandoned cortijos and the occasional hamlet whose name appears only on 1:25,000 maps. A favourite six-kilometre loop heads south to the ruined Ermita de San Isidro, crossing two dry watercourses and a field where great bustards sometimes feed among the stubble. The path is unsigned but easy: keep the wind turbines on your left shoulder and the Sierra de Guadarrama dead ahead. In May the verges are flecked with crimson poppy and the last lemon-yellow calendulas; by mid-July everything has the colour of biscuit.

Early starts are essential. Castilian light is famously sharp, and by eleven o'clock the plateau shimmers, making bird-watching nearly impossible. A dawn start rewards with hen harriers quartering the fallow, stone curleks calling overhead, and the chance—never guaranteed—of spotting a little bustard performing its cork-popping display flight. Bring at least two litres of water; there are no fountains after the village pump.

What You Will Not Find (and Might Miss)

There is no shop, no cash machine, and nowhere to buy a postcard. The nearest petrol station is a twenty-minute drive, the nearest doctor twenty-five. If the wind is from the north the smell of pig farms drifts over from the industrial units beyond the A-601, a reminder that rural Spain earns its living from more than tourism. August fiestas swell the population to perhaps three hundred, fill the lanes with second-hand smoke and generator-powered disco beats, then empty overnight, leaving only plastic cups caught in the thistles.

Some visitors turn around within the hour, unnerved by the absence of obvious attractions. They should have stayed for lunch. The village may lack restaurants, but the surrounding comarca serves some of the most forthright food in Segovia province: roast suckling lamb that flakes into sweet, pink shards; Judión beans the size of a twenty-pence piece; and punchón, a rough country pâté wrapped in caul fat. Book a table at Asador El Campanario in Cabanillas del Campo (12 km) and you will eat shoulder-to-shoulder with tractor drivers who treat the €18 menú del día as a daily entitlement rather than a visitor bargain.

Getting Here, Staying Warm

Public transport stops at the junction of the CL-601 and the SO-20; from there a pre-booked taxi adds another €25. Most British visitors collect a car at Madrid airport and drive north on the A-1, turning off at kilometre 113 for the N-110. The final twelve kilometres unwind across open plateau—watch for wild board at dusk—before the village roofs appear like a mirage beside the grain silo. Parking is wherever the verge is wide enough; remember to leave room for the combine harvesters that still thunder through in late June.

Accommodation is scattered among neighbouring villages. The smartest option is Posada de las Cárcavas, a converted grain store in Samboal with four rooms, underfloor heating and nightly rates from €90. Budget travellers can rent the Casa Rural El Pajar in Cabanillas for around €55, but bring slippers—stone floors are cold even in September. If you fancy a night under canvas, the municipal campsite at Hontoria has electricity hook-ups and hot showers for €7, though the altitude means frost is possible any month of the year.

When to Come, When to Leave

April and mid-September offer the kindest light, the clearest air and the lowest chance of being wind-whipped or snowed in. Wheat turns amber in late June, sunflowers follow three weeks later, and by October the stubble is being burned off in controlled stripes that glow like slow fireworks after dark. Winter has its own austere appeal—imagine Bruegel without the figures—but check the weather obsessively: the same road that delivered you can vanish under drifting snow within an hour.

Leave before you solve the place. Tabanera gives up its stories slowly—whose grandfather built that hórreo, why the church bell cracked in 1938, where the last shepherd still pens his sheep at night—and then only to people who return. One visit is enough to map the streets; several seasons are required to understand why anyone stays. The plateau will still be here when you come back, and the village will still be long, low and indifferent to whether you ever arrived at all.