Madrigal de las Altas Torres

The storks arrive first. Before you've parked the hire car or wrestled your suitcase from the coach hold, you'll spot them—great gangly nests balanced precariously on terracotta church towers, the birds themselves clattering like faulty football rattles. It's an oddly reassuring welcome to this high-plateau town, 900 metres above sea level, where the air thins and time thickens.

Madrigal de las Altas Torres isn't pretending to be anything. No glossy brochures, no gift-shop tat, just 1,200 residents living inside two kilometres of medieval wall that still dictates how traffic flows and where shadows fall. The name itself—"of the High Towers"—refers to those 13th-century battlements, built from warm brick that glows rust-red at dusk. Walk the perimeter path and you'll see what the builders saw: an ocean of wheat stretching to every horizon, interrupted only by the occasional stone dovecote or the sharp spike of another distant town.

Birthplace of a Queen, Home to Farmers

Inside the walls, the streets tilt gently towards the centre, following the natural rise of the land. This is where Isabel la Católica entered the world in 1451, and the palace of her father, Juan II, still stands—though today it houses a small care home and a museum that opens when the caretaker feels like it. Check the handwritten notice taped to the door; if you're out of luck, peer through the Gothic-Mudéjar cloister and imagine the infant princess learning to walk on those same flagstones.

The museum ticket (€3, cash only) buys you access to three rooms of armour, faded portraits and a 15th-century cradle that looks alarmingly like a bread trough. Don't expect interactive displays or audio guides; the most sophisticated piece of technology is the pensioner's hearing aid squeaking at the reception desk. Yet somehow the absence of polish makes it more convincing. History here hasn't been curated into submission.

Round the corner, the Iglesia de San Nicolás de Bari squats behind a modest façade that belies its split personality: Romanesque apse, Gothic nave, Mudéjar tower. Push open the heavy door at 11 a.m. and you'll catch the sun throwing gold rectangles across the brick floor, illuminating a 16th-century altarpiece whose paint still smells faintly of linseed. The church closes for lunch at 1 p.m. sharp; the verger will usher you out with the same key ring her grandmother used.

Lunch, Siestas and the Art of Doing Nothing

Spanish timekeeping takes no prisoners. By 2 p.m. the only thing moving is the temperature gauge—summer afternoons regularly top 35 °C, and the thin air offers no mercy. Plan accordingly: sightsee early, retreat at midday, re-emerge at 5 p.m. when metal shutters rattle upwards and the smell of roasted peppers drifts back into the streets.

The Plaza de España fills first. Grandmothers park themselves on plastic chairs, comparing supermarket offers while waiters ferry tiny glasses of amber vermouth crowned with green olives. Order one (€1.80) and you'll receive a free tapa—perhaps a wedge of tortilla or a plate of judiones, the local buttery white beans stewed with chorizo. Vegetarians should speak up; the default seasoning is pork in one form or another.

If you fancy something more substantial, the mesón facing the town hall serves cordero lechal—milk-fed lamb—roasted in a wood-fired oven so hot the meat caramelises in its own fat. A quarter portion feeds two modest British appetites and costs around €24. Ask for it "hecho al punto" if you prefer medium rather than the customary barely-browned centre. Wine comes in half-bottles only; full bottles are considered vulgar unless there's a christening or a funeral.

Walking the Roof of Castile

Once the mercury drops, the walls beckon again. A complete circuit takes forty minutes if you march, an hour and a half if you stop to photograph every stork and sunflower field. Parts of the parapet are cordoned off—crumbling brick, no handrail, a 12-metre drop onto somebody's vegetable patch—so respect the signs unless you fancy explaining yourself in broken Spanish to a bemused farmer.

For longer hikes, pick up the leaflet "Rutas de la Moraña" from the tourist office (opens Tuesday and Thursday, mornings only). The trails are flat, unsigned and gloriously empty. You'll share the dust tracks with the occasional tractor and a sky full of calandra larks. Spring brings scarlet poppies among the wheat; autumn turns the stubble fields beige and the hawthorns red. Summer is best avoided mid-walk—no shade, no fountains, and the only bar en route shuts on Wednesdays.

Winter is a different proposition. At 900 m, night temperatures dip below freezing from November to March, and the wind that scoured the peninsula during the Civil War still whistles through the brickwork. Snow isn't guaranteed, but when it arrives the town's four snowploughs (all vintage 1987) creak into action. Chains or winter tyres are sensible if you're driving—Madrigal sits on the junction of three provincial roads, none of them priority for the gritters.

Getting There, Getting Out

The nearest railway station is 45 km away in Ávila, itself two hours from Madrid on the regional train. From Ávila, a single bus leaves at 6 p.m., arriving in Madrigal as the streetlights flicker on. Miss it and a taxi costs €55—more than the UK flight that got you to Spain in the first place. Hiring a car at Madrid Barajas is simpler: north-west on the A-6, exit 184 towards Arévalo, then follow the N-502 for 20 km of straight road that feels like driving along a ruler. Total journey time from Heathrow touchdown to medieval gate: under three hours if the M-40 behaves.

Accommodation within the walls is limited to three casas rurales, all converted manor houses with stone staircases you wouldn't attempt after a second bottle of Ribera. Prices hover around €80 a night for a double, including breakfast delivered in a wicker basket—fresh bollería, thick coffee, and a note reminding you the front door key turns anticlockwise. Book ahead for weekends; Madrigal fills with descendants returning to show the grandchildren where great-uncle Felipe kept his pigs.

When to Fold Your Map

Stay two nights and you'll have seen the museums, walked the walls and memorised the storks' timetable. Stay three and you'll start recognising the supermarket cashier's perfume. The town rewards patience—an unlocked church suddenly open, a baker who slips an extra custard tart into the bag—but it doesn't manufacture entertainment. Evening entertainment peaks at 10 p.m. when the bars close their terraces and television football drifts through open windows. After midnight the only sound is the occasional clop of a late farmer's boots on cobblestones and the storks shifting overhead.

Come if you want Spain without the soundtrack of flip-flops and promotional shots. Come if you don't mind cash-only lunches, if you can occupy yourself with changing cloud shadows across wheat, if you think birthplaces of queens matter even when the gift shop's shut. Madrigal de las Altas Torres won't try to sell you anything, least of all a good time. It simply carries on, 900 metres closer to the sky, waiting for the storks to return each spring—and for visitors curious enough to follow them.