Las Aldehuelas

The church bell strikes eleven somewhere below, but up here the sound struggles against the wind that scours the paramo. At 1,260 metres, Las Aldehuelas sits high enough that your ears might pop driving up from Soria, and high enough that mobile reception becomes theoretical rather than actual. Sixty-one souls call this home—fewer, perhaps, by the time you read this—yet the village endures, stone by stubborn stone, in the Tierras Altas where winter lingers six months and summer arrives as a brief, fierce argument between frosts.

The Arithmetic of Altitude

Every elevation gain of 100 metres drops the temperature by roughly half a degree. Do the maths: compared with Madrid, Las Aldehuelas is a full five degrees cooler on any given day. In January that translates to nights of –12 °C when the capital shivers at –2 °C. Snow can seal the access road for days; the council keeps a plough on standby in nearby San Pedro Manrique, twenty-five minutes down the mountain, but the driver has three other villages to clear first. Come prepared: winter tyres are advisable from November to April, and the single guesthouse shuts between January and Easter because the owner decamps to Zaragoza where the plumbing doesn’t freeze.

Summer, by contrast, delivers crystalline dawns at 12 °C rising to a dry 26 °C by early afternoon—perfect for walking the old drove roads that braid through pine and juniper. The village’s altitude also places it above the summer haze that smothers the Duero basin; night skies remain dark enough to catch the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye. Bring a jacket even in August: after dark the thermometer retreats to single figures faster than you can finish a caña.

Stone, Slate and Silence

No baroque façades or plateresque retablos here. The parish church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, rebuilt after a fire in 1897, is a lesson in Castilian austerity: thick limestone walls, a single nave, a bell-cot that looks apologetic against the vastness of sky. Its treasure is architectural honesty—no unnecessary ornament, just masonry doing its job. The same ethic shapes every house: schist lower walls, adobe upper storeys, Arabic tiles heavy enough to resist the Atlantic storms that occasionally ride up the Ebro valley. Notice the wooden granaries perched on mushroom-shaped stilts: mice can’t jump that high, and air circulates beneath the grain.

A complete circuit of lanes takes twenty-three minutes at shuffling pace, assuming you pause to read the 1950s enamel street signs and to photograph the communal wash-house where water still trickles from a copper pipe. Several dwellings are locked-up ruins, their roofs open to the weather like broken mouths. Others display neat stacks of firewood under blue tarpaulins and satellite dishes the size of bicycle wheels—modernity arriving in dishes small enough to fit a suitcase yet powerful enough to catch Spanish Netflix through a gap in the poplars.

Walking Tracks That Begin Where Google Ends

Head north past the last corrugated-iron barn and the tarmac gives up. A gravel track continues along a ridge crest towards the abandoned hamlet of Valdelavilla, four kilometres distant. The route is way-marked only by occasional cairns and the confidence that sheep won’t stray far from water. Midway, a stone hut with a tin roof offers windbreak; inside, previous hikers have left a visitors’ book that doubles as social history—comments in German, Dutch and Madrid Spanish all confessing to having met no one en route.

For a shorter loop, follow the signed path south-east to the Fuente de la Teja, a spring that never freezes thanks to a south-facing overhang. The descent loses 150 metres in half a kilometre; what goes down must come back up, so allow forty-five minutes for the return haul. In May the hillside is stippled with wild tulips the colour of arterial blood; by July they have withered to papery lanterns that rattle in the breeze.

Serious trekkers can link into the GR 86, a long-distance trail that crosses the province from Berlanga to the Cañón del Río Lobos. The nearest access point is nine kilometres away at El Valle del Roíno—drive, or ask guesthouse owner Marisol to run you there for €15 if her Citroën is willing.

Eating (or Not) Above the Clouds

There are no restaurants, cafés or even a village shop. Zero. The last grocer closed when its proprietor died in 2018; the nearest bread is fifteen minutes down the mountain in Aldehuela del Rincón, where the bakery opens only in the mornings and sells out of empanadillas by ten. Self-catering is obligatory. The weekly market in Soria (Tuesday and Friday) is your best bet for supplies: look for quesillo soriano, a tangy sheep’s-milk cheese that keeps without refrigeration, and for chuletón—a beef rib steak thick enough to stun an ox. Local chorizo, air-dried in the mountain wind, is sold from a house in neighbouring Espejón; ring the bell marked “Casa Paco” and hope his granddaughter answers—she speaks school English and accepts exact cash only.

Water, at least, is plentiful and potable. The village fountain flows at six litres a minute year-round; locals still fill plastic jerry-cans rather than trust the treated supply that reaches houses twice a week through pipes laid in 1993. Tastes of iron and snowmelt—perfectly safe, though it will fur up your kettle.

When the Village Comes Home

Visit in mid-August and you’ll wonder if the statistics lie. Cars with Barcelona and Bilbao plates squeeze along lanes designed for mules; teenagers who’ve never met compare grandparents’ surnames; the plaza hosts a paella cooked in a pan two metres wide. The fiestas patronales last three days: open-air mass on the Saturday, ram fight on the Sunday (controversial, yes, but older than the Spanish constitution), and a communal lunch on Monday where tickets cost €12 and you’re expected to bring your own plate. Book accommodation early—there are exactly six guest beds in the entire village, and the returning families have dibs on them years ahead.

Any other time, expect solitude. In October the only sound is the mechanical clank of a tractor baling straw; in February even that stops. The village then belongs to the wind, the stone and the occasional walker who has read the meteorological tables and come dressed for a Scottish winter.

Getting There, Getting Out

No railway comes within forty kilometres. From London, fly to Madrid, then take the ALSA coach to Soria (2 h 15 min; around €22). Hire cars sit opposite the bus station: expect €35 a day for a Fiat 500 with no winter tyres. Drive north on the N-122 to San Pedro Manrique, then follow the SO-818 for 19 km of climbing hairpins. Petrol stations are scarce—fill up in Soria. If you’d rather not drive, Marisol sometimes collects guests from the bus stop in Aldehuela del Rincón, but she needs 24 hours’ notice and charges €20 each way.

Leaving is easier: gravity assists, and the descent to the main road takes twelve minutes. Just remember that what feels like escape is, for sixty-one people, simply Thursday.