Cabañas de Polendos

At 939 metres, the wind hits Cabanas de Polendos first and asks questions later. It whips across cereal fields, rattles the pine tops and slams the hefty wooden gates that still close off every house from the lane. Stand on the ridge above the village at dusk and you'll see what that wind carries away: traffic noise from the A-601, the last twenty years of Spanish real-estate boom, and any sense that time ought to move faster than a donkey's stroll.

A grid of stone and silence

The place is tiny—two hundred-odd souls, one proper road, no cash machine. Houses are built from the same ochre stone they stand on, so the whole village looks quarried rather than constructed. Rooflines sag like well-worn armchairs; moss fills the gaps where mortar gave up. Nobody has "renovated" anything into smart holiday lets, which explains why you can rent a three-bedroom village house for about €60 a night, if you remember to book before leaving Segovia.

Start at the plaza, where the parish church keeps an eye on proceedings with the confidence of something that has outlasted every resident. The building is fifteenth-century rural Castilian: thick walls, a single nave, a bell tower that doubles as the village mobile-mast in disguise. Inside, the air smells of candlewax and grain sacks; the priest visits twice a month and the rest of the time the key hangs on a nail in the bakery next door. Ask nicely and they'll lend it.

From the church door three streets radiate. Follow the middle one past the bakery (opens 07:30, closes when the bread sells out) and you reach the old threshing floors—wide stone circles where villagers once trampled wheat. They make perfect picnic platforms, with views south across the Meseta that flatten perspective until the horizon looks like a Bruegel canvas. On clear days you can pick out the cathedral spires of Segovia 35 km away; more often the heat haze erases everything but the next field.

Workshops that clatter only one Saturday a month

The first Saturday is when Cabanas remembers to advertise itself. That's when the talleres abiertos signs go up and the potter, the wood-turner and the goldsmith unlock their garages. British visitors tend to stumble on the event by accident—usually after spotting cars jammed into the main square and assuming it must be a fiesta. What they find is closer to a village bring-and-buy staffed by artisans who'd rather talk shavings and glazes than sell you anything. Entry is free, but you must reserve at the micro-tourist office (phone only, English spoken on Saturdays) because fire regulations limit each workshop to twelve people at a time. Turn up late and you'll be offered a coffee while you wait; accept it—the cups are hand-thrown and the beans come from a roaster in Segovia who still uses a 1950s drum.

Potter María Jesús works in the former slaughterhouse, its hooks still dangling from the ceiling. She fires at 1,240 °C, uses local clay streaked with iron, and refuses to ship anything larger than a mug. "If you want it, carry it," she shrugs, wrapping a casserole dish in yesterday's El Norte de Castilla. The wood-turner, Andrés, demonstrates how to balance a bowl from a single piece of walnut while recounting the legend of El Tuerto Pirón, the one-eyed bandit who supposedly hid in these hills during the Napoleonic wars. The story loses something in translation—especially when Andrés switches into rapid Castilian Spanish—but the gist is that the villagers outwitted the French by moving the road signs. British listeners usually decide the tale works better with a glass of the neighbouring village's verdejo in hand; Andrés keeps a bottle behind the lathe for that exact purpose.

Walking without way-markers

Cabanas has no gift shop, no interpretive centre and no official footpaths, which is precisely why hikers like it. The old sheep tracks that linked winter pastures to summer uplands are still etched into the hillsides. A favourite half-day loop heads north along the Camino de la Dehesa, drops into a pine ravine, then climbs to the abandoned village of La Mata—five roofless houses and a intact bread oven—before cutting back across wheat stubble. Total distance: 9 km; total elevation gain: 220 m; total humans met: usually nil. Spring brings a haze of purple viper's-bugloss; autumn smells of wet thyme and gunsmoke from partridge shoots. In July the same route is an oven—start before eight or fry.

Birders arrive with the dawn. The plains hold calandra larks that sing like broken alarm clocks; booted eagles slide along the thermals above; and if you sit quietly by the stone cattle troughs you may catch a hoopoe probing for beetles. Locals claim nightjars churr over the threshing floors on June evenings, though you'll need patience and a tolerance for mosquitoes to verify that.

Food that remembers the pig

There is no restaurant, only El Rincón del Tuerto Pirón, a bar that opens when the owner, Conchi, feels like it. Ring the bell; if she appears, order the cocido segoviano. The stew arrives in three acts: first the chickpea broth with fideos, then the vegetables and pulses, finally the meat—chorizo, morcilla, pancetta and a hunk of jamón that collapses at the touch of a fork. Ask for sin morcilla if black pudding offends; Conchi will swap in extra cabbage without comment. Pudding is her baked cheesecake, still wobbling in the centre and carrying just enough quince to cut the richness. The whole performance costs €14 including half a litre of house wine that tastes like Ribena with attitude. If Conchi's closed, the bakery sells empanadas filled with tuna and red pepper—eat them on the church steps and the swallows will tidy the crumbs.

Sunday is a gastronomic desert. The bakery shuts, the bar stays locked and even the village dogs look disinclined to share. Plan ahead: stock up in the Saturday morning market at Carbonero el Mayor, 12 km east, or accept that lunch may be crisps and a warm Coke from the vending machine outside the civil guard barracks.

Getting there, getting away

From London it's a Ryanair flight to Madrid, then a hire car up the A-601. Ignore the sat-nav when it tries to send you through Segovia's medieval streets; stay on the ring-road, exit at km 87 and follow the CL-601 for ten minutes until a brown sign points left. Parking is free but fills fast on workshop Saturdays—arrive before 11:00 or parallel-park among the holm oaks on the approach road.

There is no bus on Sundays and only two a day the rest of the week, neither timed for a day trip. Cycling is an option if you like gradients that look gentle on the profile but bite after the previous night's cocido. The nearest railway station is Segovia-Ciudad; high-speed trains from Madrid take 27 minutes, but you'll still need a taxi for the final 35 km.

The honest verdict

Cabanas de Polendos will not change your life. It offers no epiphany, no Instagram explosion, no tale to trump fellow travellers in the pub. What it does offer is a morning of stone lanes and wheeling kites, a pottery bowl you carried home in hand luggage, and the memory of wind so wide it seems to vacuum the city from your head. Turn up expecting entertainment and you'll be gone by lunchtime. Arrive prepared to slow your pulse to village rhythm and you might still be on the plaza at dusk, debating whether to risk one more slice of cheesecake before the long drive back to the airport.