Cihuela

The church bell hasn't rung for Sunday service in years, yet it still shows eight thirty-five on the tower clock. That's Cihuela all over: time moves differently at 840 metres on the Castilian plateau, where thirty-five registered residents share three streets and a horizon that stretches clear to the Moncayo ridge forty kilometres away.

This is Spain's España vacía—the emptied Spain—stripped bare of pretension. Stone and adobe houses slump against each other like old friends after a long evening. Some have fresh umber paint on the shutters, others gap-toothed roofs open to the Sorian sky. Both states exist simultaneously, neither judged, both honest. The cereal fields that collar the village perform the same trick: wheat stubble turns platinum in July sun, then burns to bronze by October, colours so sharp they seem to hum.

The Arithmetic of Silence

Walk the single paved road at midday in January and the cold arithmetic hits: more houses than people, more storks than cars. Tractors outnumber permanent residents three to one. The last shop shut when the proprietor died in 2008; the bar followed three years later. What remains is a textbook example of how a medieval street pattern copes when the population drops below critical mass. Calle Real, Caligrama and Cuesta de la Iglesia form a crooked triangle wide enough for livestock but never designed for through-traffic, because until 1973 there wasn't any.

Access is the first reality check. From Soria city it's 47 minutes on the SO-160, a road that narrows to single-track in places where the Duero gorge squeezes tight. Winter visits require snow chains at least twice each season; the tarmac ices quickly once sun drops behind the pine plantations. Summer brings the opposite problem—no shade, no café, no petrol. Fill up in Ólvega, twelve kilometres back, and carry water. A village without commerce demands self-sufficiency.

What the Houses Remember

Architecture here is coursework in rural pragmatism. Granite footings shoulder adobe walls half a metre thick, their bulk absorbing July heat and January frost alike. Chimneys rise cylindrical, coated in lime wash the colour of old bones—an identifying mark should you become disorientated on the surrounding caminos. Wooden gates hang from blacksmith-forged hinges dated 1896; many still work on a pivot stone rather than modern hinges. These details matter because they explain temperature and sound: interiors stay 18°C when outside peaks at 34°C, and conversations indoors remain muffled, giving the impression the village itself is listening.

The sixteenth-century church of San Andrés stands locked except for the August fiesta, but the south porch rewards patient observers. A crudely carved sheaf of wheat replaces the usual evangelists in the spandrels—agriculture elevated to theology. Step back twenty paces and you notice the building is fractionally out of square, its axis adjusted two degrees east to catch equinox sunrise over the Sierra de Santa Cruz. Medieval GPS, if you like.

Walking the Carbon Landscape

Maps label the surrounding country Campo de Gómara, yet locals call it la carbonera—the coal-field—referring not to mining but to the charcoal earth that appears each April when fields are burned stubble-bare. Three waymarked circuits start from the fountain at the lower edge of the village. The shortest (6 km) follows sheep tracks to an abandoned corral de ovejas where stone walls still carry wooden collars for tying ewes at milking time. Mid-length (11 km) strikes west to the ruined casilla of shepherd Martín Soria; his 1947 calendar hangs inside, forever open at July when he died of heatstroke searching for a missing lamb. The long loop (19 km) reaches the Cuerda del Pino ridge at 1,180 m, gaining enough height to see the snow line on the Urbión peaks, source of the Duero.

Carry Ordnance Survey-style precautions: phone signal dies after the first kilometre, the wind accelerates to 40 kph by midday, and there is zero shelter. Summer walking needs 3 litres of water per person; winter requires layers plus emergency foil blanket—rescue vehicles take ninety minutes from Soria.

When the Village Swells

For fifty-one weeks Cihuela dozes, then during the third weekend of August its population blooms to roughly two hundred. Returning families pitch tents in vegetable plots, string lights between houses, and run loudspeaker cable from a 1980s amplifier that once belonged to the discoteca móvil in nearby Ágreda. The fiesta programme never changes: Saturday mass followed by cuchifritos of lamb innards, Saturday night bingo with legs of ham as prizes, Sunday morning paella popular cooked in a pan two metres wide. Visitors are welcome but not catered for—bring your own chair, your own plate, and expect to wash up at the communal fountain afterwards.

Eating Without a Restaurant

Without commerce, sustenance becomes logistical puzzle. The nearest bar opens at 6 a.m. in Ólvega, dispensing churros and café con leche to truckers, then shuts by 2 p.m. Market day is Tuesday in San Esteban de Gormaz, twenty-five minutes' drive, where stalls sell perretas (long, thin green peppers) and chuletero lamb chops at €14 a kilo. Self-cater or go hungry—picnic tables beside the ermita outside the village offer the only public seating, and the fountain water is potable if you tolerate iron-rich hardness that furs kettles.

Local recipes reflect altitude and poverty: migas fried in mutton fat, sopa de ajo thickened with hen-house eggs, tortas de chicharrones using lard from autumn pig slaughters. Ingredients taste stronger here—garlic bites sharper, paprika smells of smoke rather than dye—because everything ripens slowly under intense ultraviolet. Even the salt behaves differently, drawing moisture from the air so it cakes in the shaker.

Departing Before Dark

Leave early enough and you might meet Andrés driving his flock the opposite way, bells clanking like loose change. He'll raise a hand without slowing; conversation is for winter evenings when work is done. Behind him the village recedes, walls glowing briefly in low sun before colour drains to monochrome. By the time you reach the main road Cihuela has become a notch in the skyline, indistinguishable from the darkening land unless you know exactly where to look. That, perhaps, is its true monument: a place that can disappear while you're still looking at it, teaching the difference between solitude and loneliness, and why the two are not synonymous.