Cilleruelo de San Mamés

The church bell tolls twice. Nobody appears. A tractor coughs into life somewhere beyond the stone houses, then fades. At nearly 1,000 metres above sea level, on the north-eastern lip of Segovia province, Cilleruelo de San Mamés measures time by diesel engines and the occasional passing cloud rather than by clocks or calendars.

Forty residents, give or take. One parish church, usually locked. No bar, no shop, no mobile-phone shop pretending to be a bakery. What the village does possess is an almost theatrical amount of space: cereal plains roll away on every side until they dissolve into a pale, heat-shimmered horizon. Drive the last ten kilometres from the N-110 and you’ll understand why the Castilian word paramo – wasteland to some, open steppe to others – feels more accurate than any postcard caption.

The Architecture of Survival

Houses here were built for winter. Walls of granite and adobe run half a metre thick; eaves sit low to deflect the wind that scours the plateau from October to April. Doorways are just wide enough for a mule and a sack of grain, and most still wear their original timber, splintered and grey. You can walk every street in fifteen minutes—fewer if the north wind is up—yet the uniformity is oddly comforting: no neon, no aluminium shutters, no villa somebody ordered from a catalogue.

The late-Romanesque church of San Mamés stands square in the middle, its tower acting as both compass needle and lightning conductor. Try the door; if it opens you’ll find a single nave, whitewashed in places, frescoed in others, and always faintly smelling of candle smoke from the last feast day. Otherwise content yourself with the exterior: the stone is warmest an hour before sunset when the daylight turns the same colour as the wheat.

Walking the Square Circles

There are no signed footpaths, which is precisely the point. A lattice of farm tracks links Cilleruelo to neighbouring hamlets—Mudrián, Campo de San Pedro, Hontoria—each about five kilometres apart. Pick any track, walk for an hour, and you’ll either reach another collection of stone houses or loop back to where you started after surprising a flock of skylarks. The going is flat, the surface compacted clay shot through with fist-sized rocks; stout shoes suffice, boots are overkill unless you insist on ankle support.

Spring brings the best palette: green wheat, purple viper’s-bugloss, the occasional blood-red poppy. By July the palette has burnt to gold and umber; the air smells of dry thyme and diesel. Thermals can hit 32 °C at midday yet drop to 12 °C the moment the sun slips, so carry a fleece even if breakfast was taken in T-shirt weather. Rain is scarce but theatrical: one August storm can turn the tracks into calf-deep clay in minutes, after which the surface bakes hard as brick before you’ve finished your coffee.

Bird life is steppe-specialist: calandra lark, short-toed lark, the occasional hen harrier quartering the fields. Bring binoculars and patience; the birds are here, but the landscape makes them work for their anonymity. Night skies are darker than anything most British travellers see south of the Kielder Observatory—the Milky Way appears almost over-exposed—yet remember there is no car park, no loo, and zero phone signal. Park sensibly, leave the hazard lights flashing, and keep a torch handy for finding the car afterwards.

What You Will Not Find

Even by rural Spanish standards Cilleruelo is parsimonious with facilities. There is no café, no Sunday-morning market, no artisan bakery run by a couple who escaped Barcelona. The nearest loaf is ten kilometres away in Cuéllar, along with the closest petrol station and cash machine. Fill the tank before you leave the N-110; the secondary road is single-lane, pitted and, after rain, slippery enough to make ABS work overtime.

Accommodation follows the same minimalist philosophy. A handful of privately owned cottages rent by the week; expect stone floors, wood-burning stoves and Wi-Fi that flickers like a 1990s modem. Prices hover around €70 a night for two, heating extra in winter. Book through the provincial tourist office in Segovia rather than hoping to stumble on a se alquila sign—most owners live in Madrid and leave keys with a neighbour who may, or may not, be in her vegetable garden when you arrive.

A Calendar Measured in Bread and Wax

The year pivots on three dates. Around 15 August the village quadruples in size when emigrantes return for the fiesta of San Mamés. A marquee goes up in the plaza, volunteers roast a couple of lambs over vine cuttings, and someone’s uncle rigs up speakers that blast pasodobles until the Guardia Civil quietly suggest 3 a.m. is plenty. Easter is quieter: a modest procession, palms made of woven reeds, women in black coats that have seen forty Holy Weeks. All Saints’ Day in November is the most local affair—families repaint graves, share rosquillas dipped in anisette, and leave before the north wind drives even the ghosts indoors.

Turn up outside these windows and you’ll have silence for company. For some travellers that is precisely the attraction; for others the lack of soundtrack feels unnerving, like walking through a television with the mute button pressed. Know which category you fall into before committing to a week.

Getting There, Getting Away

From London the smoothest run is Stansted to Madrid, then A-1 north to Aranda de Duero before cutting west on the N-110 to Cuéllar. Allow two hours for the 130 km from airport to village—Spanish motorways are quick, the final 30 kilometres are not. Car hire is essential; public transport stops at Cuéllar, and the Monday-to-Friday bus back to Madrid leaves at 6.30 a.m., a timetable designed for people who no longer live here.

Winter access can be entertaining. Snow is infrequent but when it arrives the regional plough prioritises grain trucks over tourists; a 10-centimetre fall can strand vehicles for 24 hours. Carry a blanket, water and a full phone battery November through March—not because catastrophe looms, but because the alternative is waiting for a farmer who may, or may not, own a tow rope.

So, Why Bother?

Cilleruelo de San Mamés will never feature on a glossy brochure. It offers no swimming pool, no Michelin mention, no artisan gin distillery in a restored convent. What it does provide is a yardstick against which to measure every other noisy, over-subscribed “escape” you’ve ever taken. Sit on the church steps at dusk, listen to the wheat rustle like a room full of whispering librarians, and the calculation becomes simple: either you feel the shoulders drop, the jaw unclench, and the peculiar relief of being irrelevant to the landscape; or you check your watch, wonder when the bar opens, and start planning the drive back to somewhere with table service. The village will not mind which.