Turégano

The stone bulk of castle and church share the same skin. From the approach road—SG-20 peeling off the A-1 north of Madrid—you see one silhouette only: crenellations riding the back of a Romanesque tower, as though religion had decided to armour itself against the plateau wind. That hybrid outline is Turégano’s calling card, and the village never bothers to offer another.

At 935 m the air is thinner than in Segovia, 40 km south, and the meseta’s glare has a steelier edge. Park on the upper ring-road; the old centre is cobblestone and gradient, hostile to wheeled luggage. A single glance tells you the scale: two main streets, a plaza with wooden balconies, and a population that still hovers around a thousand once the summer cousins have gone home. Silence pools between the stone houses, broken only by the hourly clank of the church bell that once summoned both worshippers and militia.

A prison with a nave

Inside the fortress the atmosphere is ecclesiastical and penitential at once. The bishops of Segovia rebuilt the fifteenth-century walls so that the nave of San Miguel sits encircled by them; the altar is literally under military occupation. Antonio Pérez—Philip II’s slippery secretary—spent two winters here before bribing his way out and racing to Aragón; graffiti attributed to bored guards still scores the lower stones. Entry is €3, cash only, and the custodian will add another euro if you want the tower stair. Take it: the view stretches across a checkerboard of cereal plots that shimmer from emerald in May to biscuit-brown by July. Inside, floors are bare and interpretations minimal; bring a torch because restoration funds run out halfway up staircases. The absence of velvet ropes or replica armour will either feel refreshing or mildly Soviet, depending on temperament.

Back in the plaza mayor the soportales give afternoon shade to a handful of locals playing mus, a Basque card game that drifted west and never left. Coffee at Bar Segovia costs €1.20 and comes with a free conversation about rainfall forecasts—vital talk on a plateau where wheat heads or fail on a difference of five millimetres. English is scarce; “Good day” delivered in confident Castilian unlocks more smiles than phrase-book perfection ever will.

Roast lamb and weekday prices

Turégano makes no claim to finesse, yet the dining bill can feel like a misprint after Segovia’s aqueduct-side terraces. Lechazo—milk-fed lamb roasted in a wood-fired clay oven—arrives as four pink-tinged ribs, crackling translucent, half portions happily supplied for the faint-hearted appetite. Expect €16–18, including a dish of judiones (buttery local beans) and a quarter-litre of Valtiendas tempranillo that tastes of blackberry and graphite. Vegetarians get sopa castellana heavy on garlic and paprika, plus the consolation of tortilla thick as a textbook. Puddings tend toward the medieval: tarta de chicharrones is an anise-scented bread cake that contains no pork at all, useful knowledge for the wary.

Mid-week lunches finish by 16:00; kitchens reopen at 20:30 and last orders slip in around 22:00. If you are staying overnight—and one night is generally enough—bring a jacket even in June; temperatures drop ten degrees within an hour of sunset, the altitude trumping any Iberian expectation of balmy evenings.

Loop walks and vulture detours

Three signed footpaths radiate from the arched gate. The shortest, 5 km to the hamlet of Fuentepiñel, crosses wheat stubble and pine shelter-belts where hoopoes flit like oversized magpies. Way-marking is discreet; download the track before leaving because mobile signal vanishes inside the first holm-oak grove. Carry water—there is none en route—and a hat; shade density is Mediterranean, not British. Cyclists can follow the farm track north to the Duratón gorge (22 km), where griffon vultures wheel at eye-level above the limestone cliffs, but should budget for a head-wind homeward.

Winter brings sharp frost and occasional snow sufficient to turn the castle ramparts into a scene from a seventeenth-century engraving, yet the same cold closes the castle on Mondays and cancels the sparse bus without notice. From November to March treat the village as a drive-only destination unless you enjoy uncertainty.

When the village doubles in size

Fiestas flip the calculus. Around 15 August the Assumption fair packs the plaza with improvised bars, brass bands and a foam machine that delights children until midnight. Accommodation within the walls books out six weeks ahead; latecomers sleep in Segovia and drive up for the fireworks. Mid-September repeats the exercise on a smaller scale for the Cristo del Amparo, and Semana Santa delivers hooded processions whose solemnity is amplified by the echo under the colonnades. Outside these windows you will share the streets with more storks than people.

Getting there, getting away

No railway line bothered to climb this high; Linecar buses leave Segovia’s Estación de Autobuses at 07:45, 13:30 and 18:00, returning at 08:00, 14:00 and 19:15. A single Sunday service operates in each direction—check the printed timetable because the online version drifts into fiction. By car the journey from Madrid Barajas T1 is 75 minutes up the A-1, then a twisty final 10 km where sat-nav over-estimates average speed. Petrol stations are scarce after kilometre 80; fill the tank at Lozoya unless you fancy paying mountain-service prices.

If you need medieval ramparts without the coach-party soundtrack, Turégano delivers the stone, the story and the silence. Stay for lunch, walk the cereal loop, and be gone before the bells mark another hour. The plateau will still be there, wind combing the barley, the fortress-church watching—half house of God, half lock-up—exactly as it has since the days when bishops kept the keys and kings plotted their escape.