Rioseco de Soria

The church bell in Rioseco strikes nine times, yet the village square remains empty save for a single grey cat washing itself on a sun-warmed bench. At 1,009 metres above sea level, sound carries differently here; each chime seems to hang in the thin air before drifting across the adobe rooftops towards the oak forests that cloak the surrounding hills. This is morning in one of Soria province's highest settlements, where the pace of life moves not to the rhythm of traffic lights but to the ancient cycle of bells, seasons and the occasional passing cloud.

Stone, Adobe and the Art of Keeping Warm

Every building in Rioseco understands winter. The oldest houses wear walls a metre thick, their tiny windows set deep into stone like narrowed eyes against the wind that sweeps down from the Moncayo massif. Walk the single main street and you'll spot the architectural genealogy: medieval stone foundations topped by seventeenth-century adobe, twentieth-century brick chimneys poking through Arabic tiles whose terracotta has weathered to the colour of local earth. It's a masterclass in passive design that any British homeowner wrestling with heating bills might envy.

The cold arrives early. By late October, night temperatures regularly drop below freezing; January often sees the mercury plunge to -10°C. Yet visit in July and you'll understand why these houses work: the same thick walls that repel winter's bite maintain an even coolness when the plateau bakes under 35°C sunshine. Locals call it "la nevera natural" – the natural fridge – though they'll readily admit that modern insulation and central heating have replaced the traditional system of closing every shutter at sunset and huddling round the open hearth.

Walking Country Where Your Phone Gives Up

The Senda La Cerrada begins beside Restaurante Quintanares, the village's sole eatery and social hub. Ten point nine kilometres of way-marked track circle through wheat stubble and holm oak dehesa, climbing a modest 77 metres to a viewpoint across the Duero basin. The walk takes three hours at Spanish pace – meaning British hikers can comfortably manage it in two, even accounting for photo stops and the inevitable moment when mobile signal disappears entirely somewhere around the second cattle grid.

OS-style mapping exists but requires forward planning. Download GPX files while you still have 4G on the main road; once past the cemetery, even WhatsApp struggles. The compensation is auditory: no engine noise, just the wind through kermes oaks and the occasional clack of a griffon vulture's wings overhead. Spring brings wild tulips and the purple flash of bee-eaters; autumn delivers a mycologist's playground, though locals guard their mushroom patches with the same jealousy a Yorkshire gardener reserves for prize leeks.

Water presents the real challenge. The route crosses two seasonal streams that in August are little more than damp gravel. Carry at least two litres per person; the altitude and exposure dehydrate faster than you'd expect. One Spanish army unit learnt this the hard way three summers ago, requiring evacuation from the very same path after underestimating a 30-degree day that felt like 25 in the breeze.

A Menu That Understands Shepherds

Restaurante Quintanares opens only at weekends outside summer, and then only if proprietor Jesús isn't needed to help with the harvest. The menu exists primarily as a formality – most visitors eat whatever Ana, his wife, has decided to cook that day. Expect cordero al chilindrón, lamb simmered with peppers until the meat slides from the bone, preceded by ajo soriano, garlic soup thickened with bread and topped with a poached egg. Vegetarians can request setas a la plancha, providing the forager who supplies wild mushrooms has visited recently. Starters and dessert, plus a quarter-litre of passable local tinto, rarely push the bill beyond €18 a head.

The couple speak no English, though Jesús recognises the international mime for "bill" and will happily draw maps on paper napkins to supplement your phone's offline efforts. Reviewers on TripAdvisor call the food "very tasty" with the relieved tone of travellers who've discovered petrol-station sandwiches aren't the only option for miles. They're not wrong, but the real flavour is temporal: lunch stretches to ninety minutes minimum, longer if farmers drop by to discuss rainfall figures over coffee that arrives in glass cups at exactly the temperature to sip immediately.

When the Village Doubles in Size

August transforms Rioseco. The population swells from 130 to perhaps 400 as former residents return from Madrid, Barcelona, even Coventry. Suddenly the silent square hosts an evening bar, erected for the fiestas patronales and staffed by cousins who've flown in expressly to serve €1 cañas until 3 am. Children who've never lived here chase each other through alleyways their grandparents navigated by torchlight during the 1950s; British visitors nursing lukewarm Estrella witness a social reunion that makes office Christmas parties look half-hearted.

Book accommodation now, assuming you can find any. La Casa de Adobe in neighbouring Valdemaluque offers three rooms fifteen minutes away by car, popular with birdwatchers tracking Dupont's lark at dawn. Otherwise, Soria city lies forty minutes west along the SO-20, its Parador occupying a reconstructed medieval convent with rates that drop sharply after the Spanish school holidays end. Winter visitors face the opposite problem: many hotels close entirely between January and March, judging continental tourists insufficient to justify heating empty wings.

The Honest Season

Come prepared. Rioseco offers no souvenir shops, no interpretive centre, no craft beer taproom experimenting with foraged thyme. Rain can arrive horizontally in April; snow sometimes isolates the village for days. The single shop sells tinned tuna, tinned tomatoes and not much else; bread arrives in a white van on Tuesdays and Fridays, sold from the back until stock runs out. Those seeking nightlife should remain in London.

Yet stand beside the church at dusk in late May, when the setting sun ignites the stone and swifts scream overhead, and you'll grasp why people endure the hardships. The silence isn't absence but presence: the sound of a landscape left largely unchanged since shepherds first drove their flocks up from the Duero valley. Rioseco doesn't do "charming" or "picturesque"; it simply continues, a thousand metres above the distractions most travellers spend their lives trying to escape. Bring sturdy boots, a sense of temporal elasticity, and the willingness to greet strangers first. The cat in the square certainly won't.