Castilruiz

The church bell strikes noon and the sound carries for miles across empty pine ridges. In Castilruiz, population 170, this is the loudest thing that happens all day. The village sits at 1,022 m on the first wrinkle of the Moncayo massif, high enough for the air to feel thinner, sharp enough to make London lungs notice the difference within minutes of stepping off the bus.

Stone houses the colour of weathered parchment line a single main street that tilts gently towards the plains of Soria. There are no souvenir shops, no ticket booths, not even a cash machine. The only commerce is a combined bakery-bar where the morning batch of pan de pueblo sells out by ten and the espresso machine stops for siesta at two. Visitors who arrive after lunch often find the place apparently abandoned until the evening paseo brings a dozen residents outside to walk the same 300-metre stretch at the speed of geology.

The Mountain that Makes the Weather

Moncayo’s 2,314-metre summit dominates every view, a grey wall that steals storms from the Atlantic and returns them as sudden snow flurries in May. The mountain’s shadow shortens the growing season; vegetable plots outside the village are small, fenced against wild boar, and still planted with varieties your grandmother would recognise. Local growers explain that tomatoes here never achieve the vulgar size of coastal Spain; instead they ripen to the diameter of a golf ball and taste correspondingly intense.

The altitude means nights are cool even in July, when the Ebro valley 50 km away swelters at 38 °C. Bring a fleece for after dark, and don’t trust weather apps designed for sea-level cities. A bright June morning can collapse into hail by teatime, a fact that keeps the village’s population of chamois hunters and mushroom foragers philosophically humble.

Walking routes start directly from the upper edge of the village where asphalt surrenders to packed clay. The GR-86 long-distance trail passes through, following drove roads once used for moving sheep to winter pastures. A straightforward two-hour circuit climbs through rewilded Scots pine to the ruins of a 1950s snow well, nevero, where locals stored ice for summer markets. The path is way-marked but rough; trainers are fine in dry weather, boots essential after rain. Expect to meet nobody except, occasionally, a retired teacher from Zaragoza who spends August cataloguing butterflies.

What Passes for Entertainment

Birdwatchers set alarms for 6 am, when golden eagles leave roosts on the limestone cliffs and thermals are still gentle enough to allow close passes above the ridge. Binoculars are useful, but the real star is the soundtrack: the descending trill of rock bunneys mixing with chain-saw calls of jays in the oak belt lower down. By nine the thermals strengthen and the raptors rise too high to identify without Swarovski sponsorship.

Autumn brings setas. The pine woods yield níscalos (saffron milk caps) from mid-October, provided the first rains arrive before the frosts. Castilruiz has no licensed mycological guides, so visitors either join a party from nearby Tarazona (€35 per person including permit) or tag along with a local grandfather in exchange for carrying his basket. Misidentify a single gilled mushroom and the entire village will know before supper; reputations recover faster than stomachs.

Food is simpler than the glossy regional cookbooks suggest. The village bar serves three dishes: migas (fried breadcrumbs with garlic and chorizo), cordero asado (roast lamb for a minimum of two people, order before midday), and setas a la plancha when someone’s basket overflows. House wine arrives in a 200 ml glass porrón and costs €2. The nearest alternative is a roadside grill on the N-122, 14 km away, whose menu is identical but whose lamb comes from the freezer.

Getting There, Staying Put

No railway comes within 40 km. The ALSA coach from Madrid’s Estación Sur leaves at 07:30, reaches Tarazona at 11:20, and connects with a local minibus that deposits passengers outside the bakery at 12:05. The return leg requires spending a night; the only evening departure leaves at 19:10, which is why most British visitors arrive with rental cars from Zaragoza airport (1 h 45 min on the A-68 and A-121). Roads are good until the final 12 km of the CL-122, a single-carriagement that corkscrews up 600 m and is occasionally closed after December snowfalls. Carry chains between November and March; the village has one snowplough and the driver likes his Sundays.

Accommodation is limited to four rooms above the bakery (€45, shared bathroom, no heating after midnight) and two rural houses sleeping six that can be booked through the ayuntamiento website. Electricity comes from the national grid but water is spring-fed; shortages occur in August when second-home owners water geraniums. Showers are therefore restricted to five minutes, a rule enforced by a taciturn plumber who can shut off supplies remotely from the pump house.

When Silence Returns

By 22:30 the village is dark enough to read star charts without squinting. The Milky Way appears as a definite stripe, not the timid smudge visible from southern England. On windless nights the hum of the A-121 rises from the valley like distant surf, a reminder that civilisation survives 20 km away. By dawn the only sound is the clink of milk bottles as the baker starts the ovens again.

Castilruiz will never feature on a list of “Spain’s most beautiful villages” because nobody here is campaigning for the title. The stone is the same colour as the hillside, the church tower leans slightly, and the main square contains a children’s slide rather than a triumphal fountain. What the place offers instead is an accurate reading of how most interior Spaniards actually live when tour coaches are elsewhere: slowly, seasonally, and with one eye always on the weather blowing in from the Moncayo. Bring walking boots, a phrase book, and patience. Leave before the bakery runs out of bread, or plan to stay until the next batch emerges at six tomorrow morning.