Villaverde de Medina

The grain silos appear first, rising like concrete sentries above the wheat. Then the brick tower of the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción slips into view, its mudéjar brickwork the colour of burnt toast. At 727 metres above sea level, Villaverde de Medina sits just high enough for the wind to carry the faintest hum from the A-6 motorway eight kilometres south – the only reminder that Madrid is barely an hour away.

Five hundred people live here, give or take a few who've slipped off to Valladolid for university and not yet returned. The village spreads across a low ridge, streets laid out in the sensible grid that Romans liked and Castilians never saw reason to change. Adobe walls two feet thick keep interiors cool when the plateau cracks under July heat; in February the same walls hold yesterday's warmth like a battery. It's architecture built for extremes, not Instagram – which explains why you won't find souvenir shops or guided tours.

What you will find is space. The cereal sea stretches north until it meets the horizon at Olmedo, south until it blurs into Medina del Campo. In April the wheat glows emerald; by late June it's gold with purple flashes of viper's bugloss. Walk the farm tracks at dusk and the only traffic is the occasional John Deere heading home, driver raising two fingers from the steering wheel in the countryman's wave. These tracks link a chain of villages – Bercero, Valdestillas, Tordesillas – each small enough to circle in twenty minutes, each with its own brick church and Saturday-morning bar where coffee still costs €1.20.

The Assumption church keeps farmer's hours. The door opens at ten, closes at lunch, reopens when the heat subsides. Inside, the air smells of candle wax and centuries of incense absorbed into stone. The tower dates from the fifteenth century, its brick pattern alternating rows like a liquorice allsort. The priest arrives on a motorbike; if you want to climb the tower you'll need to ask at the house opposite the post box – Señora Carmen has the key and will lend it in exchange for a €2 donation to the roof fund. Views stretch fifty kilometres on clear days, though clear days are the norm here where rainfall averages barely 400 mm a year.

There are no restaurants in Villaverde itself. The nearest menu is twelve minutes away in Medina del Campo, where Mesón la Villa serves roast suckling lamb that falls from the bone at the touch of a fork. Back in the village, the social centre opens Friday evenings for card games and cheap beer; bring coins because the till is an ice-cream tub and they don't take cards. If you want dinner without driving, book a room at El Jaraiz de Don Marciano on the edge of town. British guests use it as a pit-stop between Portugal and the Santander ferry, but it's worth longer than a night. Pedro, the owner, cooks whatever looked good at the market – perhaps wood-oven pork shoulder followed by almond cake, paired with a Rueda verdejo that tastes of green apples. Breakfast can be tortilla or, if you're nostalgic, proper bacon and scrambled eggs. The pool is salt-water, heated, and faces west towards those cereal fields that turn copper at sunset.

Cycling here suits pootlers rather than mamils. The CV-601 rolls gently towards Tordesillas, tarmac smooth and traffic light. A morning loop might take in the Mudéjar tower at Urueña, the wine cooperative at Rueda, and still be back for lunch. Walkers should head south on the old sheep track – now a sandy lane – that drops towards the Adaja river. You'll pass ruined stone shelters where shepherds once spent the night, and fields of chickpeas whose flowers close the moment you touch them. Take water; shade is as scarce as taxis.

Winter brings sharp mornings when the thermometer touches -5 °C and smoke drifts horizontally from chimneys. Summer is a different creature: 35 °C by noon, cicadas rattling like faulty electricity, every shutter closed against the sun. Spring and autumn are the sweet spots, when days hover around 22 °C and villagers prop doors open. The fiesta mayor lands mid-August, when the population triples with returnees from Madrid and Barcelona. There's a paella cooked in a pan two metres wide, a foam party for teenagers who've spent the year dreaming of escape, and a brass band that plays until the police – borrowed from Medina – suggest quiet. September's smaller vendimia celebration involves grape-stomping and free-flowing tinto sold by the plastic cup. Both events are aimed at locals; visitors are welcome but don't expect bilingual signage or craft stalls.

Practicalities first: fill the tank before you leave the motorway, because the village garage closed in 2008. The nearest cash machine is in Medina; bars here prefer cash and will shrug at your Monzo card. Phone signal flickers on Movistar, vanishes on Vodafone, so download offline maps. Valladolid airport is 45 minutes away; car hire is essential because buses stopped calling years ago. If you arrive after dark, navigate by the blinking light on the church tower – it's the brightest thing for miles.

Stay longer than a night and the rhythm seeps in. Bread arrives in a white van at nine; buy the barra before ten or it's gone. The baker also sells newspapers two days late. Thursday is rubbish day – wheelie bins appear at dawn like loyal soldiers. By eleven the streets empty; everyone is indoors cooking cocido or watching the news. Afternoons belong to tractors and to elderly men who shuffle to the bar for a cortado and a debate about rainfall records circa 1974. Evening brings the paseo: three circuits of the main street, clockwise, jackets over arms even when it's still 28 °C.

Some visitors find the silence unnerving. Others, usually the ones who've driven up from Marbella or across from the ferry, step out of the car, inhale the cereal dust and feel their shoulders drop two inches. Villaverde de Medina doesn't sell itself; it simply is – a working village on the high plateau where the loudest sound at midnight is your own pulse. Come for one night and you'll leave after breakfast. Stay three, and you might find yourself checking Rightmove for ruined barns with conversion potential. Just remember: the wheat turns gold whether you're watching or not.