Escobar de Polendos

The church bells chime at noon, yet only three cars sit beside the stone houses. At 935 metres above sea level, the air carries the scent of dry straw and distant wood smoke, and the horizon stretches so wide that the curve of the earth feels visible. Escobar de Polendos doesn’t announce itself; it simply appears after twenty minutes of wheat and barley, a cluster of ochre walls halfway between Segovia and nothing in particular.

A Village That Forgot to Shrink

Planners once predicted Escobar would empty like so many Castilian hamlets. The head-count did fall—from 320 in 1950 to around 170 today—but someone forgot to tell the place to give up. Houses are roofed, geraniums still edge the balconies, and the bar reopens at seven every evening even when only two customers lean on the zinc counter. The rhythm is agricultural: grain trucks rumble through at dawn, dogs bark once, then silence returns thicker than the previous night’s frost.

Walk the single main street and you’ll notice the masonry before any monument. Walls two feet thick keep interiors cool in July and warm in January; adobe patches show where owners mixed local clay with straw rather than pay for brick. Timber doors are painted the same ox-blood tone used two centuries ago—chemists in Segovia still stock the pigment because every village insists on it. Nothing is “restored” in the Instagram sense; walls are simply repaired, which explains why the place feels lived-in rather than embalmed.

What Passes for a Centre

The plaza is a rectangle of packed earth, not cobblestone, edged by a stone trough that once watered mules. Opposite stands the parish church, locked except for Sunday mass at eleven. Knock on the presbytery door and the sacristan, Julián, will usually appear with a key the size of a courgette. Inside, the single nave smells of candle wax and grain dust; a 16th-century panel of the Crucifixion hangs in shadow because electric lighting arrived only in 1993 and someone decided the bulb should stay dim to protect the paint. Donations go into a jam jar; 50 céntimos is considered generous.

There is no tourist office. Instead, the village notice board beside the bar advertises:

• Cochinillo lunch, Casa Jacinto, 25 € (order before 10 a.m.)
• Wheat harvest help wanted, 40 € a day, bring gloves
• Star-gazing night, 12 August, field behind the cemetery, telescopes provided, 3 €

That is the entire events programme for the summer.

Walking Without Waymarks

Maps show a spider’s web of farm tracks radiating into the meseta. None carries the official red-and-white stripe of a GR path, which means you can walk for two hours and meet only a hare. Head south on the gravel lane signed “Pozanco 4 km” and the wheat parts like a calm sea. At sunrise the grain heads glow rose-gold; by midday they bleach to straw under a sky so pale it hurts the eyes. Bring water—there are no fountains after the last house—and a hat; altitude thins the ozone layer more than most British walkers expect.

Autumn brings stubble and the smell of crushed cumin from the caraway weeds that fringe the fields. Winter is surprisingly bright: night temperatures drop to –8 °C but days are cobalt, perfect for brisk loops before the wind picks up. Spring is the briefest season, two weeks of green in late April, followed immediately by the first heat haze.

Food Meant for Threshers

The bar serves as village canteen. Midday menus arrive on plastic plates but the recipes pre-date plastic: judiones (butter beans the size of 50-p pieces) stewed with pig’s ear; roast lamb that has never seen a freezer; rice pudding thick enough to hold a spoon upright. Locals start with a coffee glass of red wine—yes, at 11:30—because, they claim, alcohol at altitude thins the blood. Scientists may argue; no one here cares.

If you want variety, drive ten minutes to Carbonero el Mayor where Mesón El Cazador plates up wild-boar stew on weekends. The only vegetarian option within 30 km is the supermarket in Cuéllar: expect queso fresco, tinned asparagus and little else. Gluten-free bread counts as an urban myth.

When the Village Doubles in Size

Fiestas begin on the second weekend of August when emigrants return from Madrid and Barcelona. The population swells to perhaps 400; teenagers who have never met form instant gangs; grandmothers compare hip replacements over crates of vermouth. Events follow the same timetable since 1978:

• Friday 22:00 Outdoor dinner, 12 €, bring own cutlery
• Saturday 08:00 Churros and chocolate, plaza
• Saturday 23:00 Orchestra “New York” (three men from Valladolid) plays pasodobles until 04:00
• Sunday 12:00 Mass followed by paella for 200 served from a single pan two metres wide

Accommodation does not exist. Visitors sleep in car boots, cousins’ floors, or the sports hall if they ask the mayor nicely. Book nothing in advance; simply arrive and allow someone’s aunt to adopt you.

Getting There, Staying Sane

Segovia is 45 minutes from Madrid Chamartín by high-speed train; from the provincial bus station, Linecar runs one daily service to Escobar at 14:15 (6.05 €, 35 min). The last return leaves at 07:25 next morning—miss it and a taxi costs 40 €. Driving is simpler: take the A-601 north, exit at km 67, follow the CL-601 for 12 km, then watch for the stone water tower.

Rooms are scarce. The nearest bed-and-breakfast is in Vallovela de Piron, 8 km away, where a converted farmhouse charges 70 € for two, breakfast of churros included. Otherwise stay in Segovia’s old Jewish quarter and day-trip; the city’s Roman aqueduct is worth the detour even if you’ve already seen it on postcards.

The Honest Verdict

Escobar de Polendos offers no epiphany, no selfie-moment to make London friends jealous. On a wet Tuesday in March the wind whips across the plateau like sheet steel and the bar may close because Concha’s grandson has chicken-pox. Come expecting spectacle and you will leave within an hour. Treat it as a place to switch off the phone, walk until your shins ache, and remember what quiet actually sounds like, and the village starts to work its understated spell. The grain fields will still stretch to the horizon long after the last visitor leaves; the bells will still chime for 170 people who see nothing remarkable in living halfway to the clouds.