Mojados

The evening bus from Valladolid drops you beside a stone water trough that hasn’t watered animals in decades. At 717 metres above sea-level the air is already cool, even in late May, and the smell is unmistakable: warm pine pitch carried on a wind that has crossed nothing but cereal fields since leaving the Duero. Mojados doesn’t announce itself with drama; it simply lets the plateau breathe through its grid of adobe walls and brick cornices until you notice the silence is thicker than in the city twenty minutes behind.

A Grid That Grew Slowly

Most Spanish towns expand in concentric rings. Mojados stretched westwards in straight lines, following the drainage ditches that once fed the now-vanished lagoon of La Vega. The result is streets you can walk in four minutes end-to-end, yet the perspective keeps shifting: timber lintels here, modern render there, a 1950s balcony tacked on to a 17th-century shell. The brick is local, the clay streaked with iron that turns burnt-sienna when the sun is low. Nothing is “restored” to museum polish; walls still carry the grooves where resin-workers scraped their boots after tapping the pine forests that begin at the last streetlamp.

The Plaza Mayor behaves more like a widened crossing than a square. Elderly men sit on the north bench because the granite backrest holds the afternoon heat; women prefer the south side, shaded by the church tower. At 19:30 the council switches on a ring of LED globes that look oddly lunar against the ochre façades, but by then most households have retreated indoors for dinner. British visitors expecting a throbbing tapas scene will be disappointed: there are two bars, both calm enough to read the paper, and one restaurant, Zaguan, where the set lunch (€12, wine included) runs out of roast lechazo by 15:00 sharp.

What the Pines Remember

Walk east on Calle del Pinar and tarmac gives way to a packed-earth track within 200 metres. The land rises so gently you barely notice until the village roofline drops below the horizon and the only sounds are your own footsteps and the wind combing through Aleppo and stone pines. These are the forests that paid for Mojados’ brickwork: from the 1880s until the 1960s resin was tapped here, distilled in copper cauldrons, and freighted to Valladolid for turpentine. A rusted iron cauldron still lies beside the path, half-buried in needles; touch the trunk of any mature pine and the fingernail-shaped scars are visible, each one angled like a cat’s claw.

The easiest circuit is the 6 km loop to the abandoned quarry of Las Calderas. Markers appear only at junctions—a white stripe on a fencepost—so download the free Wikiloc file before leaving the village. Spring brings nightingales and the faint smell of immortelle; August brings 38 °C by 11 a.m. and the risk of processionary caterpillars whose hairs raise blisters. Autumn is the sweet spot: partridge whir up from stubble fields, the light turns butter-yellow, and locals spend Sundays collecting boletus that they will later barter for bottles of Rueda verdejo.

Brick, Mud and a Tower That Leans

The Church of Santa María looks Romanesque until you step inside and notice the ribs are Gothic, the vaulting Renaissance, the altarpiece a restrained 1720s Baroque. The tower leans 83 cm northwards—far less than Pisa, just enough to make the bells sound fractionally off-centre. Entrance is free most mornings; ring the presbytery bell if the door is locked. The sacristy keeps a 15th-century wooden Christ whose knees are worn smooth from being dressed in real silk robes for Holy Week. There is no audioguide, no gift shop, only the caretaker who will follow you at a respectful distance in case you want the lights switched off when you leave.

Opposite the church, the old grain store has been converted into a modest interpretation centre (open weekends, €2) that explains, with endearing honesty, how the lagoon dried up after 1840 when upstream mills diverted the water. A wall map shows Mojados sitting in the centre of a shallow saucer; stand on the edge of the village any misty dawn and you can see the ghost of that geography—fields slightly darker where the water once lay, poplars marking the vanished shoreline.

Eating When the Siesta Ends

Evening menus are short and seasonal. Zaguan offers two choices: spoon food or roast meat. Judiones beans arrive in an earthenware bowl big enough for two; the chorizo is local, smoky, not over-spiced. Roast suckling lamb is served in quarters rather than halves, a concession to modern appetites. Expect to pay €18-22 for a main; vegetables appear only if you order them separately. House wine comes from nearby Pozaldez and tastes better after ten minutes in the glass when the initial sulphur blows off. If the dining room is full, Bar La Plaza across the square will grill a chuletón (T-bone) weighing a kilo, but you must ask before 21:00—kitchens close when the last customer finishes, not when the clock says so.

Breakfast is simpler: coffee from an automatic machine and a slab of torrijas (fried milk-soaked bread) if you arrive during Easter week. There is no bakery; bread vans stop at the square at 10:00 and 18:00, honking like ice-cream trucks. Bring cash—many traders lack card readers and the nearest ATM is inside a tobacco shop that shuts for lunch.

Getting Here, Getting Out

Two daily buses link Mojados with Valladolid’s Estación de Autobuses; the 09:15 departure gets you to the city in 25 minutes, the 19:45 in 40 because it meanders through three neighbouring villages. A single ticket costs €2.10, bought from the driver. Trains are irrelevant—the old station stands roofless beside the track, last served in 1985. By car take the A-11 to km 87, then the VP-3003 for six kilometres; the first glimpse of the village is a water tower shaped like a giant golf tee. Parking is free but Saturday market fills the only large lot—arrive before 10:00 or circle the perimeter streets for a space.

Accommodation is limited to three guesthouses, none with more than eight rooms. Casa Rural El Lagar de Moha has beamed ceilings, underfloor heating and weekend rates that jump from €70 to €90 without warning. Hostal El Rincon is cheaper (€45) but backs onto the main road; light sleepers will hear the bread van at dawn. All lodgings expect you to phone the day before to confirm arrival time—keys are rarely left with a neighbour.

When to Come, When to Stay Away

April and mid-September give clear skies, 22 °C afternoons and chilly bedrooms; pack a jumper even if the forecast promises 30 °C. Fiesta week (first weekend of October) triples the population, fills every room and parks marching bands beneath your window until 03:00. July and August are torrid, the bars run out of ice, and the pine paths become a free sauna. Winter is bright, wind-scoured and often below freezing at night; the heater in El Rincon sounds like a tractor and the church’s south door freezes shut. Come then only if you crave solitude and don’t mind restaurants closing on Mondays, Tuesdays or whenever trade is slow.

Mojados will not change your life. It will, however, let you calibrate altitude by the sting in your nostrils, measure time by the resin scars on a pine trunk, and remember what Spanish villages smelled like before detergent and diesel took over. Board the evening bus back to Valladolid and the city lights will seem unnecessarily bright.