Retortillo de Soria

The Canyon Approach

The road drops so suddenly into the Talegones canyon that the village seems to balance on the lip of a cracked plate. One moment you’re crossing wind-scoured cereal plains at 1,200 metres; the next, stone houses appear to cling to the far cliff like swallows’ nests. It’s the first hint that Retortillo de Soria isn’t merely “high up” – it’s suspended between two geological shelves, and winter can lock the lower access road for days when the clay turns to axle-deep paste.

Most visitors arrive on foot, following the Camino del Cid’s “Exile” stage. The final 6 km from Villar del Campo follow a mule track that corkscrews down pine-shadowed gullies, then hauls itself up the opposite wall. British walkers who expect a gentle ramble discover thigh-burn instead: the gradient touches 18 % in places, high enough for ears to pop. The reward is a view that feels lifted from a spaghetti western: ochre cliffs, black vultures circling, and the village church tower poking above the rim like a misplaced chess piece.

A Grid of Stone and Silence

Inside the walls, Retortillo makes no concessions to picturesque tourism. Streets are barely two donkeys wide; rainwater gullies run down the middle, and the stone is the colour of wet cardboard. Roughly half the houses are empty – heirs working in Madrid or Valladolid who return only for the August fiestas – so footsteps echo. Empty or not, every doorway still carries a hand-painted house name: “Casa Vicente”, “Casa de la Tía Pilar”. It’s useful; there are no street signs and the postman refuses to climb the hill in snow.

The village shop shut in 1998. The bar, La Muralla, opens at the owner’s discretion: if the metal shutter is up at 10 a.m. you’re in luck; if not, the nearest coffee is 14 km away in Berlanga de Duero. British hikers expecting a Boots-meal-deal moment should note that crisps come in one flavour (jamón) and the cheese is always the same semi-cured wheel from Burgos. Prices, however, belong to another decade: a caña of lager and a bocadillo of local chorizo rarely tops €4.50.

What the Wind Brings

Altitude matters here. In July, when Madrid swelters at 36 °C, Retortillo’s thermometer stops at 26 °C and the night-time dip demands a fleece. The pay-off is air so clear that the Sierra de Urbión, 40 km west, looks close enough to hike before lunch. Come January the same clarity becomes brutal: daytime barely crawls above freezing, the mistral-style cierzo wind can touch 70 km/h, and the village fountain ices over. Pipes inside older houses freeze too; several holiday-home owners simply drain the system and retreat to the coast until Easter.

Those winter weeks deliver the silence hikers claim to crave. Walk the 4 km track south to Arcos de Jalon and you’ll meet more red kites than humans. The path follows an old grain drove road – look for the stone waymarkers carved with a sickle, the medieval symbol of harvest toll. After rain the surface is less path, more pottery class: clay sticks to boots until each foot resembles a bowling ball. Locals strap on gaiters; visitors discover why the Spanish word for clay, barro, also means “trouble”.

A Calendar of Two Pulses

Retortillo’s social year beats twice. The first pulse comes in mid-August when population balloons from forty-odd to roughly 200. The fiestas patronales are neither advertised nor ticketed: one evening a sound system appears on a trailer, the next night there’s a foam machine in the square and teenagers drinking calimocho (red wine plus cola) out of two-litre plastic bottles. A British visitor expecting maypole quaintness might be startled by reggaeton at 3 a.m.; ear-plugs are as essential as walking boots.

The second pulse arrives on 17 January for the blessing of the animals. Dogs wear ribbons, a pony or two clops up the main street, and the priest sprinkles holy water from a plastic colander because the proper aspergillum froze and cracked years ago. Afterwards everyone squeezes into La Muralla for chocolate con churros and the only time the owner guarantees to open – even she was baptised here. If you want to photograph the event ask first; villagers tolerate cameras but dislike being treated as extras in a period drama.

How to Do It (and What Can Go Wrong)

Getting there without a car: Fly Ryanair from Stansted to Madrid on Tuesday or Saturday. ALSA coaches leave Estación Sur for Soria at 11:00 and 13:15 (book the latter – the earlier service misses the connection). From Soria’s bus station, Linecar route 343 departs at 13:15 Monday-Friday, reaching Retortillo at 14:10. A single ticket costs €4.95; the driver will stop exactly where you ask but will not speak English. Saturday and Sunday there is no bus: pre-book a taxi through Radio Taxi Soria (€45, 35 min). If you arrive late, note that the streetlights are turned off at midnight to save the council €300 a month – carry a torch.

Accommodation: There is no hotel. Hostal La Muralla has four rooms above the bar (€35 double, shared bath). Heating is by pellet stove; instructions are in Spanish but essentially “don’t touch anything”. Hot water is reliable except when the wind knocks out the thermo-electric generator – it happened four times last February. Bring slippers; stone floors are cold enough to make you miss carpet.

Supplies: The bakery van – Qpan – calls at 09:30 daily except Sunday. A 400 g loaf costs €1.20, croissants 60 ¢ each. Stock up on fruit and chocolate in Soria; Retortillo has zero retail. Tap water is safe but tastes metallic; the village fountain (end of Calle del Medio) is fed by a mountain spring and preferred by locals.

Walking: Download the free Camino del Cid GPS track; signposting is sporadic and the clay detour mentioned earlier can add an unplanned kilometre. Mobile reception is patchy in the canyon – an EE roaming plan will show one bar, then none. If the weather forecast mentions tormenta (storm) believe it: lightning strikes the ridge annually and the path becomes a river within minutes.

Leaving the Empty Quarter

Drive out at dusk and you’ll see why Castilians call this the España vaciada – emptied Spain. Abandoned hamlets dot every fold of the hills, their rooftops long gone so only stone silhouettes remain against the barley. Retortillo clings on, not because of tourism but because a handful of families refuse the gravitational pull of the provincial capital. For visitors that stubbornness translates into something increasingly scarce: a place where human rhythm still answers to weather, daylight and the price of wheat rather than to Google reviews. Come prepared – bring cash, a phrasebook and a tolerance for inconvenience – and the village will repay you with silence so complete you’ll hear your own pulse echoing off the canyon walls. Fail to plan and you’ll spend a cold, hungry night wondering why nobody warned you the bar might be shut. Either way, you’ll remember the moment the road tipped into the gorge and Spain’s empty quarter began.