Fuentestrún

The altitude sign reads 1 024 m as you roll into Fuentestrún, and the thermometer on the dashboard drops three degrees in the final kilometre. Suddenly the windscreen fills with the dark bulk of Moncayo, the mountain that acts as a weather wall between Castile and Aragón. The village itself – forty-one souls on paper, fewer in winter – is little more than two rows of stone houses and a church whose bell still marks the quarters. Mobile signal dies at the last bend; by the time you park beside the stone trough that serves as a central square, your phone has given up searching.

That loss of connection is the first thing most visitors notice. The second is the temperature. At this height the summers are short and the nights can touch freezing even in May. Come January the SO-920 access road is often closed by snowdrifts, and the handful of residents stockpile firewood in October as if preparing for siege. The upside is air so clear that the Milky Way looks like someone spilt sugar across black marble. Light-pollution maps show this corner of Soria as one of the darkest patches in western Europe, and the local council – what there is of it – has resisted the temptation to install the sodium lamps that bleach most Spanish villages into 24-hour twilight.

Stone, oak and pork fat

Houses are built from the same grey-brown sandstone that pokes through the surrounding holm-oak woods. Rooflines sag in slow motion; timbers were last replaced when the town’s population still hit three figures. There is no souvenir shop, no interpretation centre, no artisanal ice-cream parlour. The only commerce is Casa Galindo, a bar that opens when its owner, Julián, feels like it. Inside, a wood-burner the size of a London fridge coughs out heat and the scent of resin. Coffee is €1.20, wine comes in 100 ml pours called cortos, and the menu never changes: garlic soup thick enough to stand a spoon in, plates of torreznos (crunchy strips of pork belly rendered in their own fat), and tinned seafood that Julián insists is “better than fresh”. Card payments are theoretically possible on a machine that beeps mournfully before declaring “sin cobertura”; bring notes.

Walk off lunch on the unsigned track that leaves from the churchyard and climbs gently south-west through dehesa. Within ten minutes the village is invisible and the only sound is acorns dropping onto leaf litter. The path is a former cañada real, one of the transhumant routes that once funnelled five million sheep annually between summer pastures in the Cantabrian mountains and winter grazing in Extremadura. You’ll meet more roe deer than humans; wild boar rootings scar the banks, and every so often a chunk of worked stone appears – a livestock enclosure, a charcoal platform – reminders that emptiness here is recent, not historic.

Maps, mud and misleading signposts

Proper hiking requires self-reliance. There is no way-marked network, and the 1:50 000 map sheet (Soria-975, available from the regional government website) still shows tracks that vanished in the 1950s. After rain the clay soil clogs boots like wet cement; a short detour can turn into an energy-sapping squelch. The safest bet is to follow the forest road that contours beneath the Moncayo’s southern face for 6 km to the abandoned hamlet of San Martín del Moncayo, where a roofless Romanesque church stands open to the sky. Allow two hours each way, carry water, and don’t rely on phone GPS – the narrow valley kills signal completely.

Spring and autumn are the comfortable windows. April brings drifts of white Prunus blossom against the grey stone; October smells of mushrooms and wood smoke. August can hit 30 °C at midday, but the altitude keeps nights cool enough for a jumper. Winter is serious: snow often blocks the road for days, and the council tractor doesn’t always bother to clear as far as Fuentestrún. If you’re tempted by a cheap January rental, pack snow chains and enough food to wait out a blizzard.

A Monday warning and other practicalities

The nearest petrol is 22 km away in Tarazona, so top up before you leave the N-234. There is no cash machine; the closest banks are in Ólvega, 35 minutes down the mountain. Monday is ghost-town day – Casa Galindo shuts, the only bakery van skips the village, and you will feel like the last person on Earth. Plan accordingly.

Accommodation is limited to two self-catering houses. Casa Rural El Búho sleeps four, has a wood-burner, thick stone walls and reviews that praise its “proper darkness at night”, though past guests complain about the lack of Wi-Fi and the steep, narrow stairs. The alternative, Casa Garduña, is slightly larger, accepts dogs, and its English-speaking owners leave a folder of laminated walking notes – useful, though the distances are underestimated. Neither property has a reception desk; keys are left in a coded box and you’re on your own after that. Bring groceries: the nearest supermarket big enough for hummus or decent coffee is a Mercadona in Tudela, 50 minutes’ drive.

When the village remembers how to party

If you time it right – usually the second weekend of August – you’ll collide with the fiesta patronal. The population quadruples as emigrants return with grandchildren, a sound system appears in the square, and Julián drags trestle tables outside for a communal paella. At dusk the mayor hands out chupitos of patxaran, a sloe-flavoured liqueur that tastes like alcoholic Ribena. Fireworks are modest: three rockets and a wheel that fizzles into the oak canopy. By midnight half the men are singing jotas in thick Sorian accents while their wives compare recipes for setas picked illegally in the next valley. It is amateur, affectionate, and over by 2 a.m. when the cold drives everyone indoors.

The rest of the year silence reclaims the streets. Whether that feels liberating or mildly terrifying is a matter of temperament. Fuentestrún will not entertain you; it offers altitude, absence, and the realisation that Spain still contains places where the loudest noise at 10 p.m. is the church bell counting the hours. If that sounds like sufficient provision, fill the tank, download the map, and drive uphill until the signal dies.