Castrejón de la Peña

The morning mist lifts at 1,100 metres to reveal stone houses with woodpiles stacked higher than the doorways. A farmer in a flat cap guides three cows down the main street while his neighbour starts a tractor that sounds like it last saw a service during the peseta era. Castrejón de la Peña doesn't do pretty postcards; it does morning routines that haven't changed much since the road from Palencia was tarmacked.

A Village that Answers to the Seasons, Not to TripAdvisor

Three hundred residents, give or take whoever left for university in Valladolid and hasn't come back yet. The population graph looks like a gentle ski slope, but the people who remain know exactly when the first frost will kill the tomatoes and which meadow hides the best saffron milk caps after October rain. Visitors expecting boutique shops or even a cash machine are advised to fill their wallets in Guardo, twenty winding kilometres back towards the motorway. What you get instead is a place where the bakery van still honks its horn at nine sharp and the bar owner remembers how you like your coffee on the second visit.

The stone parish church squats at the top of the hill because that is where churches go in the Montaña Palentina. Inside, the paint is flaking and the pews creak, but the building has witnessed every baptism, wedding and funeral since the 1700s and carries the weight without complaint. Nobody will charge you entry or offer an audio guide; push the heavy door, nod to the elderly woman lighting a candle, and leave a euro in the box if you feel like it.

Walking Territory for People Who Read Maps

Head north-east past the last house and the tarmac turns into a farm track that climbs gently through hay meadows. After forty minutes you reach a stone hut where shepherds once spent the night with their flocks; the roof has collapsed but the walls make a decent windbreak for a sandwich. Keep going another hour and the path tops out at a limestone edge with views across four valleys and, on clear days, the Picos de Europa fifty kilometres away. The OS-style mapping on your phone will show blank space, so download the IGN 1:25,000 sheet beforehand or ask in the bar—José keeps a dog-eared copy behind the coffee machine and enjoys explaining routes to anyone who buys a second cortado.

Winter changes the rules. Snow can arrive overnight in January, turning the access road into a toboggan run and cutting the village off for two days. Chains become compulsory, and the elderly simply stay indoors until the council tractor clears a single lane. Spring compensates with abrupt green explosions: one week the oaks are skeletal, the next they cast full shade and the cow parsley is shoulder-high. Summer is brief, glorious and mercifully free of the 40-degree temperatures that fry the Duero basin down on the plateau. Nights stay cool enough that you will still want the duvet the guesthouse provides.

Food that Requires a Spoon and Time

Lunch at the only open restaurant starts at 14:30 sharp and finishes when the last table empties. The menu is a laminated A4 sheet that hasn't changed since the queen's silver jubilee: garlic soup, mountain beans with chorizo, and stewed veal that slides off the bone. Vegetarians get eggs and chips, possibly with pisto if they ring the day before. Expect to pay €12 including wine from Valdejalón that arrives in a plain bottle and tastes better than it should. Pudding is rice pudding or nothing; coffee comes with a thimble of orujo that locals pour into the cup regardless of the hour.

Booking matters at weekends when families drive up from Aguilar de Campoo. Turn up unannounced and you will be offered the bar stool by the door while the regulars occupy the dining room and discuss tractor prices over second helpings. Breakfast is simpler: strong coffee and a sponge cake wedge in the same bar at eight, surrounded by men in overalls who have already milked twenty cows and think you're soft for being awake at this hour.

When the Village Remembers It Has Visitors

August fiestas transform the place. The population quadruples as grandchildren return from Madrid and Bilbao, coloured lights zig-zag across the square, and the sound system is turned up loud enough to annoy the livestock. A foam machine appears on Saturday night, followed by a disco that finishes at six when the priest rings the church bell for early mass. If you prefer your mountain silence undisturbed, check dates before booking. The other moment the village fills is the weekend closest to 9 November, when the mushroom permit holders descend and every 4×4 sports baskets of boletus on the back seat. The forest becomes a polite battlefield of orange vests and walking sticks; by Monday the understory looks hoovered and conversation in the bar turns to who found the biggest cantarel.

Getting There, Staying There, Leaving Again

Palencia city to Castrejón takes ninety minutes by car, longer if you obey the 50 km/h limits through the coal villages beyond Guardo. There is no railway; the daily bus from Santander to Palencia will drop you at the junction six kilometres away, but then you thumb a lift or walk. Accommodation is limited to four self-catering cottages and the nine-room Country House El Colono on the edge of the village, where British owners Margaret and Pete converted a 1930s farmhouse and added underfloor heating plus Wi-Fi that flickers when it snows. Rates start at £85 per night for two, including logs for the wood-burner and directions to the best viewpoint for photographing sunrise over the valley. They also lend snow chains and will collect you from the main road if winter closes in while you're up a mountain.

Leave before checkout and you can be eating churros in Burgos in just over an hour, or back on the A67 heading towards Santander and the ferry home. The village will return to its quiet rhythms: cows, tractors, the seasons, and the certainty that tomorrow the mist will lift the same way it did this morning, whether anyone is watching or not.