Valverde del Majano

The grain silos glint like oversized tin cans against the 925-metre sky, catching the early sun long before Segovia’s cathedral wakes up. From the village edge you can watch the shadows retreat across an ocean of wheat stubble that stretches clear to the Guadarrama peaks, forty kilometres away. No souvenir stalls, no tour buses, just the smell of warm straw and someone frying chorizo for breakfast.

Valverde del Majano sits fifteen minutes south-west of Segovia on the CL-601, close enough to pop in for aqueduct photos yet far enough that coach parties give it a miss. What they lose is the chance to see a working Castilian village whose calendar still turns on sowing and slaughter rather than selfies and sangria.

Stone, Brick and the Occasional Tractor

The centre is a tight knot of streets wide enough for a single Seat Ibiza and the occasional combine harvester that has taken a wrong turn. Houses are built from the same ochre limestone that paves Segovia’s plazas, though here the stone arrives on the back of a farmer’s lorry rather than a heritage grant. Timber doors hang heavy with hand-forged ironwork; upstairs balconies sag under pots of geraniums that somehow survive the altitude’s sharp night frosts. Interspersed are 1970s brick boxes and one aggressively modern villa with tinted windows – proof that the village refuses to become a museum.

The tower of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción pokes above the roofs, its brickwork the colour of burnt biscuits. The church is kept locked unless the sacristan is around; ask at the ayuntamiento opposite and they’ll lend you a skeleton key the size of a croquet mallet. Inside, the nave feels lofty after the bright glare outside, and a 16th-century retablo glimmers with gilt paint that has been touched up so often the saints look faintly surprised.

Round the back, a lane leads past private bodegas – cave entrances carved into the rock for storing wine when the Duero valley still supplied Segovia’s taverns. Most are padlocked, but an open mouth exhales cool, musty air and a faint whiff of last decade’s tempranillo.

Lunch at the Only Trencherman’s Stop

La Trebede opens for comida at 13:30 and fills with locals in dusty overalls. British visitors who stumble in expecting tapas leave happily stuffed instead. The menú del día costs €18 and starts with judiones – butter beans the size of conkers stewed with chorizo and bay. Follow with cordero lechal (milk-fed lamb) that collapses at the sight of a fork, or a chuleton de Ávila, a T-bone the thickness of a paperback, charred outside, almost blue within. Ask for it “poco hecho” and the waiter will nod approvingly; ask for it well done and he’ll pretend not to hear. House white is a Sauvignon blanc from Nieva, crisp enough to cut through the fat and gentle on heads unused to Rioja’s oak.

Coffee comes with a shot of orujo if the landlord recognises your accent as non-Madrid; refusal is taken as personal insult. The bill is cash only – cards are accepted only after €10 and the machine is “broken” more often than not. Fill your wallet in Segovia; the nearest cashpoint is a twenty-minute drive.

A Walk Across the Roof of the Province

By 15:00 the sun has turned the streets into a cast-iron griddle, so sensible folk head for the caminos that radiate into the fields. A signed 6-kilometre loop, the Ruta de las Erales, follows medieval cart tracks between low dry-stone walls. Wheat stubble crunches underfoot; larks hang overhead like punctuation marks. Shade is scarce – one lone holm oak every half kilometre – so take water and a hat that won’t take off in the breeze that always rises by 16:00.

The reward is the view from Cerro del Majano, a stony bump whose name misleads castle-hunters. There is no fortress, only a cairn of rocks piled by shepherds and a 360-degree panorama: caramel-coloured earth stitched with green vineyard lines, and the snow-dusted Guadarrama floating on a heat haze. On exceptionally clear winter days Madrid’s four towers glint on the horizon, seventy kilometres away.

Cyclists use the same web of tracks; the gradient is gentle enough for family thighs, though the surface varies from packed earth to fist-sized flint that pings against rims. Bring a spare tube – the nearest bike shop is back in Segovia.

When the Village Remembers It Has Visitors

August’s fiesta patronal around the 15th turns the plaza into an open-air kitchen. Temporary bars serve grilled sardines that taste more of charcoal than sea, but no one complains. A brass band plays pasodobles at decibels fit for football terraces, and teenage girls parade in dresses that still carry price-tag creases. The church procession is short – the Virgin is carried once round the square before she’s hurried inside for a well-earned sit-down. Visitors are welcome to join the verbena; buy a €5 raffle ticket even if you don’t want the ham prize – it’s cheaper than a round and earns instant neighbourliness.

September’s San Michael fair is smaller, centred on a communal paella cooked in a pan the width of a tractor tyre. If you volunteer to stir you’ll be handed a wooden paddle and a glass of wine; refusal is, again, frowned upon.

Getting There, Getting Out

No train, no bus, no Uber: a hire car is essential. From Madrid take the AP-61 to Segovia, then the CL-601 towards Ávila; the turn-off is signposted but easy to miss at 110 km/h. Parking is wherever you won’t block a gateway – farmers leave engines running while they collect feed and have little patience for tourist dithering.

Allow ninety minutes to see everything on foot, two hours if the church key hunt turns into a chat with the mayor-cum-tour-guide. Combine with Santa María la Real de Nieva ten minutes north – its ruined Roman aqueduct makes a photogenic picnic spot – or head on to the slate villages of the Sierra de Guadarrama for contrast.

The Honest Verdict

Valverde del Majano will never tick the “must-see” box. It has no castle, no boutique hotels, no gift shop flogging fridge magnets. What it offers instead is a snapshot of rural Castile still earning its living from the soil: a place where the butcher knows how the lamb was reared and the wine list is whatever the owner’s cousin bottled last year. Come for lunch, stay for the walk, leave before the afternoon slump turns streets into a siesta film set. If you need medieval ramparts and audio guides, stay in Segovia. If you fancy an hour of horizon-wide silence broken only by a distant tractor, Valverde del Majano is already waiting, key in the door and chorizo on the grill.