Tajahuerce

The church bell tolls at noon, but only three people cross the single paved road that cuts through Tajahuerce. At 1,050 metres above sea level, the air carries the scent of dry straw and distant sheep, a reminder that this is working farmland, not a stage set. The village sits on a shallow rise in the Campo de Gómara, a high plateau northwest of Soria, where the horizon is so wide that approaching cars are visible a full five minutes before they arrive.

Stone houses, some restored, others propped up with scaffolding that looks decades old, line two short streets that meet at the 16th-century parish church of San Pedro. There is no café, no gift shop, no interpretive centre. Instead, a wooden bench outside the locked church door serves as the social hub. If you sit there long enough, someone will nod hello, ask where you’ve come from, and probably tell you the last Brit they saw was a bird-watcher who slept in his van three summers ago.

Walking on the Roof of Castilla

The appeal of Tajahuerce is less what you see and more what you feel: the hush of open country broken only by larks and the creak of a distant tractor. A lattice of unmarked farm tracks radiates from the last house, leading across pale wheat and fallow fields that stretch until they curve out of sight. None of the paths are way-marked, so download an offline map or, better still, ask one of the 23 registered inhabitants which lane loops back to the road. Most walks are flat, between six and ten kilometres, and you are unlikely to meet anyone except the occasional shepherd on a moto-trike checking solar-powered water pumps.

Summer hiking demands an early start. By 11 a.m. the sun ricochets off the limestone earth and shade is limited to the narrow strip beneath a poplar or the lee of an abandoned threshing circle. Spring and autumn are kinder: skylarks hang overhead, and after rain the plain smells of pennyroyal and wild chamomile. Winter brings a different palette—ochre stubble against iron-grey skies—and night-time temperatures that drop below –5 °C. When snow arrives the village is effectively cut off; the provincial plough prioritises the N-111, leaving the final 7 km of local road packed hard and polished like glass.

A Sky Without Billboards

Light pollution maps show this corner of Soria province in inky black. Step outside the single streetlamp’s glow on a clear moonless night and the Milky Way appears so bright it reflects off sheet-metal silos. Bring a tripod and a fast lens and you can photograph the galactic core above the church tower without stacking frames. Amateurs from Madrid drive two and a half hours just for the darkness, though they usually continue 15 km south to Calatañazor where the bar stays open later. In Tajahuerce the only after-dark amenity is a vending machine for detergent inside the locked laundry coop.

What You Won’t Find (and What That Saves You)

There is no admission charge, no audio guide, no coach park. The heritage inventory fits on a postcard: the church, a crumbling stone granary with a coat of arms, and a 1930s iron drinking trough now used as a flowerbed. Inside San Pedro, the altarpiece is plain pine, painted a sober terre verte. The guidebook superlatives—magnificent, breathtaking, exquisite—simply don’t apply, and that is refreshing. You are free to look, leave, and let the place recede into memory without anyone pressing a fridge magnet into your hand.

The downside is logistical. If you arrive hungry you face a 25-minute drive to Ólvega for the nearest bar, or 35 minutes to Soria city for a supermarket. Pack water and a picnic; the village fountain is safe but tastes strongly of iron. Petrol stations are equally sparse—fill up before you leave the A-15 or you’ll be hunting for a card-operated pump in a wheat field.

August Comeback and Winter Silence

For eleven months Tajahuerce dozes, but during the fiestas patronales around the 15th of August former residents flood back. The population swells to perhaps 120, toddlers race bicycles between doorways, and a sound system appears in the square for Saturday night bingo. Locals roast a pair of lambs in a brick pit dug beside the church, and everyone brings their own chair, plate and wine. Outsiders are welcome, though you’ll need to introduce yourself; place a couple of euros in the collection tin and someone will hand you a slice of roast suckling pig before you sit down.

By the 20th the exodus is complete. Houses are shuttered, keys left with a cousin, and the plain reverts to skylarks and wind. Winter arrives early at this altitude; the first frost can hit in late October. When snow drifts across the access road, the postman leaves letters in a plastic box at the junction with the N-111 and villagers collect them by 4×4 or on foot, skis strapped to rucksacks.

Getting There, Staying Sensible

From Soria take the N-111 north towards Logroño, turn off at Lubia onto the SO-160, then follow signs for Tajahuerce. The final stretch is single-track tarmac with two passing bays; reverse 200 metres if you meet a combine harvester. Mobile coverage is patchy—Vodafone disappears altogether inside the church walls—so print directions or cache your route.

Accommodation is non-existent in the village. The nearest hotel is Hostal la Parada in Ólvega (doubles €55, basic but clean). Wild camping is tolerated if you ask at the last farmhouse on the eastern edge, but fires are banned in summer and the farmer will remember if you leave gates open. Better to base yourself in Soria and visit as a day trip; the city’s Romanesque cloister and the riverside tapas bars provide civilised bookends to an excursion into Spain’s high empty quarter.

Tajahuerce offers no postcard moment, no summit to bag, no wine festival. What it does give you is a calibration point: a place where the 21st century thins out until you can hear your own footsteps echoing off stone that has seen perhaps forty generations come and go. Spend an hour, or spend the day—then drive away while the plain glitters behind you like a pale sea under that enormous sky.