Villasila de Valdavia

The church bell tolls eleven and the valley swallows the sound. At 870 metres above sea level, Villasila de Valdavia sits high enough for the air to carry a snap of winter even in late April, yet low enough for wheat to ripen before the frosts return. Seventy-odd souls live here, give or take the emigrant sons and daughters who fly in for August fiestas and push the census to almost a hundred. Their stone houses shoulder together against a wind that has scoured the Castilian plateau for centuries, and every roofline tilts slightly, as if the whole village is listening for traffic that never comes.

A Landscape of Absence and Grain

Drive the CL-615 north from Palencia and the land begins to buckle. Empty cereal fields roll like a calm sea until, twenty minutes beyond Saldaña, the Valdavia river slices a shallow gorge and the tarmac narrows to a single lane with gravel lay-bys. Villasila appears suddenly: a huddle of ochre walls, a slate-roofed church tower, then nothing but wheat and sky behind. There is no petrol station, no cash-point, no illuminated sign to welcome you. Park on the triangle of concrete by the river bridge; if three cars are already there, you’ve met the daily quota.

The village architecture is honest rather than pretty. Adobe walls a metre thick keep interiors cool through July’s 35-degree afternoons, while tiny upstairs windows defend against January nights that dip to –8 °C. Some houses have fresh putty around the frames and geraniums on the sills; others stand hollow, their doors nailed shut, roof tiles missing like broken teeth. The overall effect is neither ruined nor restored—simply suspended. You are witnessing rural Spain mid-breath, deciding whether to exhale.

Walking tracks strike out from the last streetlamp (the only one) and climb onto the páramo. Within ten minutes the village shrinks to a smudge of brown between blond stubble and the metallic ribbon of the river. Keep ascending and you reach a low ridge at 1,050 m where boot prints from yesterday’s shepherd are still sharp in the dust. From here the province of Palencia spreads westwards: a chessboard of barley and fallow, each square edged by a dirt track straight enough to satisfy any Roman. No ticket office, no interpretive panel—just the wind and, if you linger till dusk, a pair of red kites circling the thermals.

Eating (and Not Eating) Locally

Hunger requires planning. The single bar, Casa Julia, opens at seven for coffee and industrial pastries, closes at two, then reappears at eight for beer and raciones. There is no menu; whatever José has thawed that day is what you get. A plate of lechazo asado—milk-fed lamb slow-roasted in a wood oven—feeds two hungry walkers for €16 and comes with a foil packet of local piquillo peppers that taste faintly of smoke. Vegetarians should ask for sopa castellana: a brick-red garlic broth with cubes of day-old bread and a poached egg bobbing like a reluctant life-raft. If the door is shuttered, the nearest alternative is in Cevico de la Torre, 12 km back towards the main road.

Monday is starvation day. The bakery-van that tootles through on other mornings falls silent, and the little grocer’s metal grille stays down. Wise visitors stock up in Saldaña on Sunday evening: a loaf of pan candeal, some sheep’s cheese wrapped in waxed paper, and a tetra-brick of gazpacho for emergencies. Pack a pocketknife; picnics beside the river beat any restaurant view, and the water is clean enough to refill bottles if you trust the cattle upstream.

Seasons that Decide for You

Spring arrives late and all at once. By mid-May the valley smells of broom and wet earth, and night temperatures crawl above 10 °C for the first time since October. This is hiking season: skies are sharp, lambs still small enough to squeeze under wire fences, and the only mud is in the river meadows. Come June the cereal ripens to gold; farmers run combine harvesters at first light to beat the afternoon thunderstorms that build over the Cantabrian range. July and August belong to sun-hardened locals and the Madrid families who rent empty cottages for €60 a night. They spend siesta hours behind closed shutters, emerging at six to irrigate vegetable plots and gossip under the plane tree. Temperatures can hit 38 °C, yet the low humidity makes it tolerable—just carry two litres of water on the páramo and start early.

Autumn is brief, almost brutal. One frost in mid-September browns the sunflowers overnight; by mid-October the stubble is burned and wood-smoke drifts along the streets. This is the photographers’ window: clear air, raptor migration, and wheat stubble glowing like copper wire when the low sun strikes. Winter shuts the place down. The CL-615 is gritted but the side road to Villasila is not; if snow dusts the valley the village becomes an island reachable only by 4×4 or stubborn neighbours with tractors. Heating is mostly log-burners—holly oak and pine—so chimneys puff continuously and the smell of resin sweetens the cold. Unless you crave absolute silence and a chance to write that novel, visit between April and mid-June or after the grape harvest.

What Passes for Entertainment

There is no interpretive centre, no bike-hire hut, no craft shop selling fridge magnets shaped like bulls. Instead you get conversations. Stand still for thirty seconds and someone will ask where you’re from, how you found the place, whether you’ve seen the Roman bridge two fields over. English is scarce; a few phrases of Castilian Spanish open doors (and wine bottles). The fiestas patrias on the second weekend of August compress an entire social year into three days: Saturday mass with incense thick enough to choke the altar boys, a paella cooked in a pan the size of a satellite dish, and a disco run from the back of a Ford Transit that pumps 1990s Euro-pop until the mayor—who is also the DJ—pulls the plug at 03:00 sharp. Visitors are welcome but not announced; buy a raffle ticket for the ham leg and you’re instantly vecino for the night.

If you need structure, drive 25 km south to the Iron-Age hillfort of Bernardo de la Reina or north into the Montaña Palentina for bearded-vulture territory and the medieval bridge of Requejo. Both excursions remind you how thinly populated this chunk of Spain remains: you will meet more cows than people on the trail, and the only entry fee is the petrol you burned to get there.

Leaving Without a Souvenir

The gift shop does not exist. Take instead the sound of wheat husks crackling in afternoon heat, the sight of a lone stork drifting over adobe roofs, the taste of cheese that has never seen a plastic wrapper. Back on the CL-615, indicator clicking for the turn towards Palencia, Villasila slips behind the crest and you realise the village has offered you nothing except space and time. Sometimes that is precisely enough.