Cisla

The church bell strikes noon, but nobody checks their watch. In Cisla, timekeeping happens in fields rather than on wrists—when the wheat turns gold, when the shadows stretch across the Plaza Mayor, when the tractor rumbles back from the far plot. This hamlet of 110 souls sits 850 metres above sea level in the cereal ocean of La Moraña, 25 kilometres north-west of Ávila, and it measures its days by seasons that have repeated since the Reconquista.

A landscape that forgets the word ‘rush’

From the single road that threads the village, the view runs uninterrupted to a horizon so flat it could have been ironed. Wheat, barley and sunflowers roll out like bolts of fabric, their colours changing on nature’s whim: emerald after spring rain, ochre by July, the colour of strong tea once the stubble is burned. The Sierra de Ávila floats on the western edge on clear days, a jagged reminder that mountains exist, but Cisla itself refuses to rise for them. The land is a working canvas; every verge is owned, ploughed, accounted for. Walkers are welcome provided they stick to the unmade farm tracks and step aside when a John Deere approaches—drivers raise a hand, not out of politeness but because that is the done thing.

There are no way-marked trails, no visitor centre, no gift shop selling fridge magnets shaped like bulls. Mobile signal drops to a single bar at the cemetery gates, which is either an affront or a relief depending on your mood. The compensation is the soundtrack: larks overhead, the squeak of a metal gate, wind combing through the crop. Bring binoculars if you like birds—kestrels hover above the verge, and at dusk partridge coveys whirr across the track like clockwork toys.

Stone, adobe and lives still being lived

Cisla’s streets are barely two metres wide; they were designed for donkeys, not Renaults. Houses grow from the same earth they stand on: ochre limestone below, sun-dried adobe bricks above, roof tiles the colour of burnt toast. Some façades have been scrubbed and re-pointed by returnee families who left for Madrid or Valladolid in the seventies; others slump gently, their wooden balconies held together with rusted nails and optimism. Peek through an open portal and you may see a courtyard where a pensioner has hung last year’s garlic from a beam, or where a stray cat has claimed the stone basin once used for washing clothes.

The village’s single monument is the Iglesia de San Juan Bautista, a sixteenth-century parish church that squats at the highest point like a referee in the middle of a scrum. Its bell tower was rebuilt after lightning in 1932; the interior is plain, dim and usually locked unless Sunday mass is underway. Even then the congregation numbers fewer than twenty, voices echoing off walls that have heard the same responses in the same Castilian accent for five centuries. Come at dusk when the west door is open and you can glimpse the gilt altar glinting like a struck match before the sacristan pulls the keys shut for the night.

What passes for entertainment

There is no café, no bar, no bakery. The last shop closed when its owner died in 2004; locals now drive to Mingorría, eight kilometres east, for bread and gossip. Visitors should fill the tank in Ávila and bring water—the plaza fountain is ornamental, not potable. Plan on a picnic: a wedge of local sheep’s cheese from the Saturday market in Arévalo, a tin of mussels from home, tomatoes that actually taste of summer. Spread a blanket on the threshing floor south of the church; the stone is warm from the sun and the view stretches forty kilometres.

If you need to stretch your legs, follow the farm track north towards El Campillo. The path ducks between wheat plots and past an abandoned wine press dug into the hillside—its stone lip still purple-stained from grapes pressed when Franco was in short trousers. The round trip is barely five kilometres and gains no more than 60 metres, but the silence is so complete you’ll hear your own heartbeat mixing with the buzz of cicadas. Cyclists can loop further, linking Cisla with Villanueva de Ávila or El Barraco on gravel farm roads; a mountain bike is advisable, and carry a spare tube—thorns from hawthorn hedges have ended many an afternoon.

When the village remembers it has a calendar

August is the month Cisla swells. Emigrants return with Madrid number plates and grandchildren who speak with the city’s lisp. The fiestas honour the Assumption: a brass band that looks older than the music it plays, a procession that pauses so the statue of the Virgin can be turned to face her childhood home, and a Saturday-night dance held on a portable stage that runs off a generator humming louder than the bass. Outsiders are welcome but not announced; buy a raffle ticket for the ham, applaud the toddlers in flamenco frocks, and accept the plastic cup of beer pressed into your hand. By the second week of August the wheat is already being drilled for next year and the village exhales back to its quiet size.

Winter is a different proposition. At 850 metres, Cisla catches the same Atlantic weather that dusts the Gredos with snow. Daytime temperatures hover around 6 °C, nights drop below zero, and the wind whistles across plains that offer no resistance. Roads are gritted promptly—this is cereal country and grain lorries must run—but drifting snow can still cut the village for a day. Come then only if you enjoy monochrome landscapes and the smell of wood smoke; accommodation within the hamlet is non-existent, and the nearest heated refuge is a rural guest-house in El Fresno, fifteen minutes away by car.

Beds, boards and how to reach them

Staying overnight means looking beyond the village limits. A handful of casas rurales dot the surrounding countryside, typically renovated labourers’ cottages with under-floor heating and coffee machines that mock the rustic stone walls. Expect to pay €80–€100 for two, including breakfast delivered in a wicker basket because there is no café down the lane. The closest is Casa de la Pradera, three kilometres south; they’ll leave the key under a flowerpot if you arrive after dark.

Reaching Cisla without a car requires patience and a tolerance for connections. Renfe runs frequent trains from Madrid Chamartín to Ávila (1 h 20 min), from where the bus company Cevesa operates one daily service to Mingorría—departing 15:30, returning 07:00 next day. That leaves a seven-kilometre gap: taxis from Ávila charge a flat €25, or you can walk the final hour on the CV-130, shoulders prickling each time a combine harvester rumbles past. Driving is simpler: take the A-50 from Madrid to Ávila, then the N-502 towards Arévalo and turn off at El Barraco; the final twelve kilometres snake through wheat and sunflowers, the road narrowing until the first stone houses appear and your satellite navigator admits defeat.

Leaving without promising to return

Cisla will not suit everyone. If your idea of rural Spain involves tapas trails and souvenir tiles, keep going to Salamanca. If you need constant connectivity, bring a novel—4G fades with the first tractor. But for travellers who can occupy themselves with nothing more than a wide sky and the sound of grain shifting in the breeze, the village offers a calibration point. You will leave with dust on your shoes, silence in your ears and the realisation that somewhere between the wheat and the church bell, your own watch has lost a few minutes.