Mozoncillo

The church bell strikes noon and the only other sound is resin dripping from a nearby pine. At 854 metres above sea level, Mozoncillo sits high enough for the air to feel thinner, yet flat enough that you'd never call it a hill village. This is the Spanish interior's meseta stripped to its essentials: one bakery, one bar, endless rows of resin pines and roughly five trees for every resident.

Most British visitors flash past on the AP-61, bound for Segovia's aqueduct or an early-flight hotel near the airport. Those who do peel off at junction 61 find a place that trades in atmosphere rather than monuments. The village centre is a chessboard of ochre stone houses, many still roofed with old Roman tiles hauled down from nearby Carlisle when the legions left. Interspersed are 1970s brick boxes and the occasional half-finished new build—proof that even here, Spain's construction boom left loose ends.

A walk through resin-scented air

Start at the Plaza de la Constitución, really just a widened street with a stone bench and a defunct fountain. The ayuntamiento keeps the tourist office locked unless you ring the bell labelled "Emergencias/Oficina" and wait for Pilar, who arrives with a ring of keys and photocopied maps. She'll tell you—rightly—that the single nave of the Iglesia de San Juan Bautista is worth ten minutes. Inside, a 16th-century font sits beneath a vaulted roof patched so many times the bricks look like a geological strata chart. Drop a euro in the box and lights flicker on just long enough to notice the fresco of St Christopher whose face was scrubbed out during a bored Civil War afternoon.

From the church, Calle Real runs north between houses whose ground-floor bodegas are carved into living rock. Oak doors hang on wrought-iron hinges thick as a wrist; peer through the cracks and you'll see clay tinajas once filled with last year's wine. Halfway up, an English couple bought number 42 in 2021. They painted their shutters Wedgwood blue and planted lavender that promptly died in the minus-twelve winter. "We hadn't factored in altitude," the husband admits when caught retrieving the Sunday Times from a letterbox still labelled "Correos". Their renovation is a reminder: bring UK-spec wood treatment or the dry air will turn beams to biscuit.

Continue for ten minutes and tarmac gives way to a sandy track signed "Pinar-2 km". The path is dead straight, used originally for ox-carts hauling resin barrels. Scots pines close overhead, lowering the temperature by several degrees even in July. Footfall muffles, cicadas fade, and the smell is unmistakable: turpentine mixed with hot dust. Every so often a trunk bears an old V-shaped scar where resin was tapped until the trade collapsed in the 1980s. Now only one family still works the trees, selling raw pitch to a violin-maker in Madrid at €18 a kilo.

Flat trails, big skies

This is walking for people who like mileage without gradient. A five-kilometre loop heads east to the abandoned charcoal platforms of Cerro Gordo, then back along a farm track where wheat meets pine. For something longer, follow the GR-10 way-markers south towards Carbonero el Mayor: 18 km of wide forestry road, good for mountain bikes if you remembered to bring them. The village baker, Esteban, hires out three elderly Orbeas for €15 a day; brakes are an optional extra he adjusts with a ten-millimetre spanner while you wait.

Serious hikers sometimes turn up nose at the lack of peaks. They shouldn't. In April the forest floor is a carpet of purple crocus; by October migrant hawfinches shuttle through, flashing amber in binoculars. Dawn is the best time: set off at seven and you'll have golden orioles for company plus a 90% chance of spotting roe deer where the track crosses the seasonal stream. Just don't expect signage. The regional government sprayed a few green dots on trees in 2009 then ran out of budget. Download the free Wikiloc file in the village plaza Wi-Fi before you head out—coverage drops to 3G within minutes.

One bar, one menu, no fuss

Food options are limited, refreshingly so. The Mesón de Mozoncillo opens at 08:00 for coffee and churros, closes at 17:00, then reopens for dinner if you booked earlier. House rule: no orders after 21:30. The owner, Jesús, spent three seasons cheffing in Leeds and speaks English with a West-Yorkshire lilt. His "British menu"—chicken, chips, peas—sits at the bottom of the card for emergencies, but ignore it. Instead, ask for the set lunch: garlic soup (minus egg if you're fussy), segureño lamb roasted in a wood-fired oven, and a half-bottle of local Ribera. Price: €14 including pudding, usually rice pudding spiced with cinnamon. Vegetarians get a grilled red-pepper terrine that tastes better than it looks.

If you're self-catering, stock up in Segovia before you arrive. The village shop keeps peculiar hours: 09:30-13:00, 17:00-20:00, but only Tuesday to Saturday. Bread arrives at 11:00; by 11:30 the crusty loaves are gone. On Friday a white van sells cheese from a shepherd near Ayllón: wedges of mild ewe's milk wrapped in waxed paper, €12 a kilo. Buy early; when it's sold he drives off and nobody knows his return date.

Winter silence, summer escape

Climate catches people out. Summer days top 34°C but nights plummet to 15°C—pack a fleece even in August. From December to February the thermometer dips below freezing most nights; central heating in rural houses runs on bottled gas that can ice up. Snow is rare, yet when it comes the village is cut off for 48 hours because the council owns one plough for the whole comarca. Book only fully insulated casas rurales; the pretty stone cottage with single glazing will feel like camping at 800 m.

Fiestas punctuate the stillness. San Juan Bautista in late June means a fairground ride shoe-horned into the plaza, fireworks that terrify the village dogs, and free caldo poured from dustbins at midnight. The August "pincho" evening is more fun: each household sets up a trestle table offering one tapas-sized dish—garlic mushrooms, morcilla, tiny pork burgers—paid for with €1 tickets sold by the mayor. Visitors are welcome but you must queue with locals; nobody jumps the line.

Getting here, getting out

Without a car, forget it. There is a bus from Segovia at 07:15 and 19:45; it stops on the N-603, a 25-minute walk from the church. Miss the return and a taxi costs €40. From the UK, fly into Madrid, pick up a hire car at Barajas T1 and drive: A-6 west, peel off onto the AP-61, exit 61, then N-603 north for ten minutes. Total time: 70 minutes, roughly the same as reaching the Costa traffic jam. Petrol is cheaper at the motorway services than in the village, so fill up before you leave the A-6.

Accommodation is limited to four rural houses and one Airbnb studio above the bakery. Expect €70 a night for two, plus €15 if you want the fireplace lit. Sheets are line-dried and smell of pine—some visitors find it medicinal, others reach for the antihistamines. One house, Casa Gonia, has under-floor heating and a telescope on the roof; the owner brings homemade biscuits and leaves you alone. Book weekends early; Segovia city dwellers escape here for the silence.

Leave expectations at the city gate

Mozoncillo will never feature on a "Top Ten Spanish Villages" list. It offers no castle to climb, no Renaissance plaza for Instagram, no artisan gelato. What it does give is space: forest tracks where you can walk for an hour without meeting anyone, night skies dark enough to see Andromeda with the naked eye, and a bar where the coffee arrives with the bill already tallied because Jesús remembered your order. Come for 24 hours and you might leave after 12, bored by the quiet. Stay three days and the rhythm sinks in—early bed, early rise, the smell of resin on your clothes—and Madrid suddenly feels hysterical. Either way, keep the tank half full and download the map. The pines will still be here, dripping, regardless.