Carbonero el Mayor

The smell hits before the view. Hot resin drifts across the road at head height, carried on a breeze that has crossed nothing taller than a stone pine for forty kilometres. You have climbed steadily from the baking plain outside Madrid, gained 900 metres without noticing, and now the thermometer on the hire car drops four degrees in as many minutes. Welcome to Carbonero el Mayor, population 2,500, altitude 918 m, pinewood capital of Segovia province.

Timber, trotters and very little traffic

No souvenir shops, no hop-on guides, not even a taxi rank. The village earns its living the same way it did two centuries ago: selling pine nuts, resin and pork products to whoever drives up the CL-601. The timber yards on the western edge smell of fresh-cut Christmas trees; the slaughterhouse advertises its opening hours on a hand-painted board. Between the two, a single set of traffic lights flashes amber all day because no one has bothered to reprogramme them since the last fiesta.

That indifference to passing trade is either refreshing or inconvenient, depending on expectations. Visitors looking for a quick coffee after 14:00 will find metal shutters across every bar except El Riscal, a steak-house that looks like a transport café but serves a chuletón for two that could floor a rugby prop. Locals eat at 15:00; turn up at 13:55 and you will be welcomed like family, arrive at 15:05 and the grill is already being hosed down. Order the judiones – butter-white beans stewed with bay and clove – and ask for “sin chorizo” if meat is off the menu. The waiters understand; they have seen it all before.

A church organ you are allowed to touch

The fifteenth-century church of San Juan Bautista squats on the highest bit of ground, its tower visible from any approach road. Inside, the late-Gothic vaulting is handsome but familiar; the real surprise is the organ. Twenty-four stops, 1,500 pipes, and a wooden console the size of a London flat’s kitchen. The caretaker keeps the key in his trouser pocket and is usually found next door watering geraniums. A polite “¿Podríamos ver el órgano?” is generally rewarded with a five-minute private recital that shakes dust from the rafters. Photography is encouraged; donations are not mentioned but appreciated.

Round the corner, the Casa Museo de los Quehaceres fills two rooms of a seventeenth-century house with the tools locals used when the village had three blacksmiths and no broadband. English captions are short, accurate and occasionally witty: the resin-tapper’s axe is labelled “original multi-tool”. Kids like the smell of beeswax and the chance to lift a plough that weighs more than they do. The museum opens when the woman with the key finishes her supermarket run; if the door is locked, try the bakery opposite and someone will telephone her.

Forest tracks and flat horizons

Carbonero sits in the centre of the Tierra de Pinares, a forest so extensive that the council simply numbers its walking routes rather than naming them. All are flat, way-marked and start from the southern end of Calle Real. The shortest loop, PR-3, is 6 km of soft sand and pine needles that ends at an abandoned resin store smelling of turpentine. Take water – shade is patchy and the village fountain occasionally runs dry when the agricultural tanker fills up. June walkers will hear cicadas; October brings the crack of pine cones popping open in the heat.

Mountain bikes work better than road bikes here. The old forestry tracks are graded gravel, wide enough for a Land Rover and almost free of traffic. A gentle 20 km circuit westwards reaches the hamlet of Revenga, where the bar opens only at weekends and the owner keeps a book of jokes in the lavatory. Segovia is 25 km further on, but the provincial capital feels metropolitan after a night in Carbonero; best to circle back for a second beer and watch the sun drop behind the trees.

Tuesdays and silence

Market day is Tuesday. Stallholders from Valladolid arrive before 08:00 and are packing up by 13:00. The cheese man cuts tastes with the same knife he uses for everyone; the honey woman sells thick-set orange blossom that will crystallise on the journey home. Bring cash – the nearest cash machine locks its door at 22:00 and most traders refuse cards for purchases under €10. By 14:30 the plaza is hosed down and the only sound is the click of dominoes from the senior citizens’ club.

Evenings fade fast. The young have migrated to Segovia or Madrid; those who remain treat 23:00 like midnight. If you are staying overnight, the three small hotels on Calle del Medio have clean rooms for €55–€70, but double-glazing is optional and the church bells chime the quarters. Light sleepers should pack earplugs or join the late crowd at El Riscal for a ponche segoviano – a square of brandy-soaked sponge and marzipan that two people can barely finish. The village is silent by half-past eleven, the air cool enough to need a jacket even in August.

Getting here, getting away

Carbonero works as a pit-stop, not a hub. The high-speed AVE line whistles past three kilometres south, but the nearest station is Segovia-Guiomar, 25 km away. Car hire is essential unless you fancy an €18 taxi each way and a nervous wait for the driver to answer his mobile. From London, fly to Madrid, take the half-hourly coach to Segovia, then pick up a rental car at the intermodal station – the whole journey door-to-door is under four hours, faster than reaching most of Devon.

Come in May for the pine-bloom scent and the village fiesta, or in late September when mushroom sellers set up tables on the pavement. Winter is crisp, bright and empty; snow is rare but night frosts harden the mud into ruts that rattle hire-car suspension. August is hot, dry and even quieter than usual – everyone with a second home has already left for the coast.

Leave room in the suitcase for a kilo of raw pine nuts and a bottle of local rosé; both cost half supermarket prices and travel well. Then drive south-east until the trees thin, the temperature rises and the resin smell fades in the rear-view mirror. Carbonero el Mayor returns to its own affairs, unaware and unconcerned whether you ever came at all.