Yanguas

The first thing you notice is the hush. At 987 metres above sea level, Yanguas sits high enough for the air to feel thinner, cleaner, and just that bit quieter. The A-15 motorway is only fifteen minutes away, yet the only sound cutting through the morning is the Cidacos stream slapping against the medieval bridge and the slow toll of the sixteenth-century bell-tower marking another hour no-one is rushing to fill.

With little over a hundred residents, the village stretches along a single ridge. Stone houses shoulder together, their wooden balconies painted the colour of oxidised copper, while a ruined castle keeps watch from the upper spur. The whole place is officially listed as a Bien de Interés Cultural—Spain’s way of saying “don’t muck this up”—though you half suspect the paperwork was done to reassure the villagers rather than attract coach parties. It works; most afternoons you’ll share the arcaded main square with two retired farmers, one dog, and a cloud of swifts.

The climb and the payoff

Leave the car by the modern playground at the entrance; the upper lanes are barely a car-and-a-half wide and the turning circle at the top involves a precipice and a sarcastic stone wall. From here it is a five-minute calf-burn to the castle. Do not expect battlements and a gift shop. What remains is a knee-high outline of walls, enough to show the footprint, plus dizzy views south across layers of Iberian oak and, on a clear day, the snow-dusted Moncayo massif forty kilometres distant. The ruin is at its best in late afternoon when the stone glows tobacco-brown and the wind hums through gaps where arrow slits once were.

Below the castle, the Romanesque church of Santa María hides a Baroque retablo gilded so lavishly it feels almost apologetic amid the bare stone. The door is usually open—if not, the key hangs next door at number 14, ask for María—and inside the temperature drops a good ten degrees. On hot July days this is the coolest spot for miles; locals bring their grandkids to “feel the chill” before siesta.

Walking tracks that feel like private discoveries

A way-marked path leaves from the far end of the village, ducks under holm oaks and climbs gently onto the Cerro de la Muela ridge (3 km loop, 180 m ascent). The track is clear but rocky; trainers are fine outside midsummer when the stones fry. Buzzards and the occasional golden eagle ride the thermals, and in May the verges are laced with white cistus that smells faintly of curry. Allow ninety minutes including photo stops and the inevitable pause to watch a tractor crawl across the opposite hillside like a beetle.

A longer option follows the old cañada real drove-road south towards the deserted hamlet of Espejón (11 km return, mostly flat). You pass stone sheep enclosures and a spring whose water, according to a faded 1977 sign, “cures all sickness”—bring purification tablets all the same. The route is way-marked by metal disks painted with a horseshoe; if you lose them, keep the river on your left and you won’t get lost.

Caldereta and other antidotes to mountain air

Back in the village, the only bar, Casa Julián, opens at eight for coffee and doesn’t really close until the last brandy is poured. There is no written menu; choices are recited at speed. Ask for caldereta de cordero—a slow-cooked lamb stew sharpened with wine and bay—followed by migas de pastor, fried breadcrumbs tossed with garlic, grapes and scraps of bacon. A two-course menú del día costs €14 mid-week; booking is polite if you’re arriving after two. Vegetarians get a sympathetic omelette and the season’s mushrooms, nothing more.

If you’re self-catering, the Saturday market in Soria (35 min drive) sells local anchovy-black morcilla, tangy sheep’s cheese wrapped in chestnut leaves, and rough Rioja at €3 a bottle. Yanguas itself has no shops beyond a grocer that unlocks on request; ring the bell, wait, and someone’s grandmother will appear with a key and a running total in her head.

When to come, and when to stay away

April–June and mid-September to early November give crisp light, blooming broom and walking temperatures in the low twenties. July and August are hot—32 °C by noon—and the village’s thin stone walls radiate heat long after dusk. Accommodation is limited to four rooms above the bar and two rural houses rented by the night; €60–€80 gets you beamed ceilings, patchy Wi-Fi and a terrace that faces the Milky Way on moonless nights. Reserve anything in advance for festival weekends; otherwise you can usually turn up and trust the handwritten note on the door directing you to an alternative if full.

Winter is a different proposition. The altitude and the exposed plateau can drop snow without warning, and the access road, though technically cleared, becomes a toboggan run after dusk. Still, January brings blue-sky days when the castle ruins stand out like a paper cut-out and the stew tastes better for the frost you stamped off your boots. Bring chains or a sturdy car, and do not rely on street lighting—there barely is any.

Small print worth reading

There is no petrol station for 30 km and no ATM at all. Fill up and get cash in Soria or Ágreda before you wind uphill. Mobile signal jumps between one bar and “no service”; WhatsApp works if you stand by the church door. Sunday lunch is possible only if the bar owner fancies opening—phone +34 975 35 40 29 the day before or risk crisps for lunch. Finally, remember the siesta shutdown: everything goes quiet from two until four, and anyone rattling doors at that hour is considered mildly unhinged.

Yanguas will never make the front page of a glossy regional guide, and the locals would like it to stay that way. Come for the silence, the lamb and the realisation that a place can still run on church bells, neighbourly credit and firewood hauled in on donkeys. Leave before you start offering to help repaint the balconies—they’ve managed perfectly well for five centuries without us.