Pajarejos

The church bell strikes noon, yet nobody appears. Twenty-four souls call Pajarejos home—officially, at least—and on a weekday in March you might share the entire municipality with only the wind. At 990 metres above sea level, this Segovian outpost sits just high enough for the air to sharpen, carrying the scent of broom and distant wood smoke rather than anything so ordinary as traffic fumes.

Approach from the south-west and the meseta seems to ripple like a rug someone has tugged. The N-110 deposits you at Carbonero el Mayor; from there the CL-601 snakes north-east for twenty minutes before shrinking to a single-lane track. Google Maps will swear the journey takes 19 km; your odometer will insist it’s nearer 25. Both are right—the road unravels so completely that distance feels elastic. The final 4 km climb 200 metres, enough for ears to pop and for temperatures to drop three degrees against the car thermometer. In winter the ascent can ice over; locals keep chains in the boot from November to April.

Stone walls the colour of burnt cream announce the village limit. A hand-painted board welcomes you—someone refreshed the lettering last year, though the accompanying flowerpots remain empty. Pajarejos has no plaza mayor, no cafés, no souvenir shop peddling fridge magnets. What it does possess is horizontal space: fields of wheat stubble roll to the horizon, interrupted only by the occasional limestone outcrop and, on clear days, the faint silhouette of the Sierra de Ayllón fifty kilometres east. The silence is not poetic; it is absolute, broken only by the rasp of a tractor starter motor or, at dusk, the clatter of grain bins as pigeons settle for the night.

Walking Through the Inventory of a Shrinking Place

Start at the church, dedicated to San Millán. The building is locked more often than not—the key hangs in the house opposite, number 14, where Señora Eugenia will answer if you knock after 10 a.m. Inside, the nave is barely twelve metres long; the altarpiece was regilded in 1973 and already the leaf is lifting. Yet the timber roof is sound, original chestnut from the sixteenth century, and the acoustics make a whisper carry like a stage whisper. Leave a euro in the box; it covers the cost of the single bulb that illuminates Saturday evening mass.

From the church doorway three streets radiate. None has a name; the council stopped replacing signs when the last one was stolen for scrap iron. Walk north and the cobbles give way to compacted earth. House numbers stop at 37; beyond that, doorways gape like missing teeth. Some properties still shelter livestock—goats regard you with the suspicion reserved for outsiders who might reopen long-closed accounts. Peek over a wall and you’ll see the traditional layout: stable on the ground floor, living quarters above, external staircase of cantilevered stone. The steps grow narrower as they rise, a medieval security system designed to force right-handed attackers to expose their sword arm.

Twenty minutes brings you to the village edge. A cattle grid separates inhabited from abandoned Spain; the track continues as a GR footpath, though the paint blazes faded years ago. Follow it for forty minutes and you reach the ruins of Ermita de la Soledad, a hermitage roofed by sky alone. Swallows nest where rafters once sat; on the floor lie fragments of glazed tile, cobalt and white, the colour still fierce despite two centuries of frost. From the doorway the land falls away towards the Duratón gorge; buzzards ride thermals beneath your boots, a reminder that altitude here is measured from the valley floor, not from sea level.

Seasons That Decide Whether You Get In

Spring arrives late. At 990 metres night frosts can linger until mid-May, which is why almond blossom appears only in early April, three weeks behind the Segovian average. The compensation is colour: the steppe bursts into brief, almost violent green, dotted with purple milk-vetch and yellow star-thistle. Walk the sheep tracks between cereal plots and you’ll flush short-toed larks, their wings making a sound like tearing paper. Bring a windproof—even at 18 °C the breeze carries enough edge to redden knuckles.

Summer is the only season when the village feels half-full. Descendants of former residents return for the fiestas around 15 August; the population swells to perhaps 80. A sound system appears in the square-that-isn’t-a-square, and lamb skewers sizzle over charcoal sold by the sack from the co-op in Ayllón. Accommodation is impossible unless you booked La Casona de la Vid months earlier. British guests who have stayed describe it as “Fawlty Towers without the malice”—four rooms, mismatched antiques, and a dinner menu that changes according to whatever Jesús, the owner, shot that morning. Expect to pay €70 for half-board, wine included; vegetarian options are limited to tortilla.

Autumn is golden and merciless. Storms rolling in from the Atlantic collide with the meseta’s edge, producing cloud bursts that can dump 30 mm in an hour. The unpaved streets become red-brown torrents; leave wellingtons in the car. Yet the light turns so clear that you can pick out the tower of Segovia cathedral 45 kilometres distant, a spike on the horizon that looks close enough to touch.

Winter empties the place entirely. When snow arrives—two falls most years, occasionally waist-deep—the council grades the approach road only as far as the last occupied farmhouse. Beyond that, chains and momentum are your responsibility. Daytime highs hover around 4 °C; inside stone houses the temperature follows within an hour. Most owners drain the pipes and retreat to Madrid or Valladolid until March. Attempt a visit then and you will have the silence, the stars and possibly the Guardia Civil asking why you’re risking a night on the high plateau.

Eating, Sleeping and Filling the Tank

There is no shop. The last grocer closed when her refrigerator compressor failed in 2009; nobody replaced it. Bring everything you need, or drive 18 km to Ayllón where two small supermarkets open 9 a.m.–2 p.m., reopen 5 p.m.–8 p.m. and close entirely on Sunday. Fuel is also in Ayllón—an automated station that accepts UK cards without PIN, handy because mobile coverage in Pajarejos is patchy enough to make Apple Pay a gamble.

If La Casona is full, the nearest beds are in Collado Hermoso, 12 km west: Casa Rural Los Templarios, €60 a night, heating by pellet stove that the owner will light for you if you arrive after dark. Dinner means driving back to Ayllón; Restaurante la Cerca does a respectable cocido on Wednesdays and Saturdays, €18 the portion, but you must reserve before noon.

Carry water. The village fountain looks photogenic—stone trough, iron spout, moss velvet—but the flow is not guaranteed. Summer droughts can reduce it to a drip; in winter the pipe freezes. A two-litre bottle in the boot costs nothing and saves a 40-minute round trip for rehydration.

Leaving Without the Usual Promises

Pajarejos will not change your life. It offers no epiphany, no Instagram pinnacle, no story that plays well at dinner parties back home. What it does provide is a calibration point: a place where you can stand at the geographic centre of nothing much and feel the scale of Iberian emptiness. Drive away at dusk and the village shrinks in the rear-view mirror until only the church tower remains, a stone finger keeping count of the hours for whoever might return. Most don’t; that, too, is part of the deal.