Torrecilla en Cameros

The church bell strikes seven and the sound rolls down the slate roofs like loose change. By the time it reaches the valley floor, the Iregua River is already catching first light and a red squirrel has vanished into a beech trunk. Nothing else moves. Torrecilla en Cameros doesn’t do rush hour.

Stone, altitude and the smell of oak smoke

At 766 metres the air is thinner than on the Costa Blanca and it carries the faint tang of oak smoke and wet sheep. Houses are built from the mountain itself—russet limestone blocks chiselled so tight you can’t slide a credit card between them. Rooflines sag like old mattresses, yet the timber balconies are painted ox-blood red and geraniums survive the night frost. It is lived-in, not manicured; a resident may park a 1999 Seat Toledo halfway on the pavement, but the medieval lintel above the driver’s head is still carved with a 16th-century coat of arms.

Walk uphill past the bakery (open 08:30–13:00, closed Monday) and the street narrows to a gutter-wide channel where rainwater runs in winter and cats sleep in summer. After five minutes the tarmac gives up, turns to packed earth and you are on the PR-23 footpath proper. No ticket office, no gift shop, just a wooden post marked “Puerto de Oncala 9 km”. The forest swallows mobile signal instantly; EE drops first, Vodafone clings on for another twenty metres.

Walking without a brochure

The Cameros hills were grazed before the Romans arrived, and the same cow paths now double as hiking trails. Most visitors pick the circular route that climbs 250 m to the Collado de la Mata, skirts a meadow full of buttercups in May, then descends through a holm-oak grove back to the village. The whole loop takes ninety minutes at British walking-magazine pace, sixty if you’re the sort who owns trekking poles. Waymarking is scruffy but honest: a yellow dash on a rock every hundred metres, plus the occasional tin plate nailed by a local shepherd.

Early risers may spot Iberian green woodpeckers or, if the day is windless, a roe deer stepping across the path like someone trying not to wake the neighbours. Binoculars help; the canopy is high and the undergrowth thick with bramble and hawthorn. After rainfall the limestone drains fast, so mud rarely lasts beyond midday. In January the same trail can be iced solid—micro-spikes recommended—while July walkers need two litres of water; the only fountain is at the start.

What lunch costs and where to eat it

Torrecilla keeps one bar-restaurant, Casa Ramón, open Thursday to Sunday. A three-course menú del día is €14 and includes wine that tastes better than the price suggests. Order the patatas a la riojana—soft potato, mild chorizo and enough paprika to stain the plate without blowing your head off. Vegetarians get menestra, a spring-veg stew sharpened with white wine; ask for it “sin jamón” or the chef will scatter ham shards by reflex. If you want the famous chuletón rib-eye, phone the day before; it arrives on the coals weighing a kilo, enough for two hungry post-walk appetites.

There is no coffee-roasting artisan within forty kilometres. What you get is café con leche made from a Nespresso-style capsule and heated UHT milk. Accept it, or carry a flask of filter coffee in your rucksack like the German cyclists do.

When the day-trippers leave

Weekend afternoons bring number-plates from Bilbao and Zaragoza. By 17:00 the narrow high street clogs with SUVs hunting non-existent parking. The solution is simple: walk uphill for ten minutes. The cars can’t follow, the forest regains its quiet, and the only sound is the Iregua drifting over polished stones thirty metres below.

Evenings stretch long and cool. At twilight the temperature can fall ten degrees in an hour; bring a fleece even in August. Locals emerge for the paseo, clockwise round the church square, coats buttoned despite the season. Children kick footballs against 17th-century walls; nobody seems bothered. If you attempt Spanish, the reply comes slow but warm. English is scarce—download the Google Translate Spanish pack while you have Wi-Fi.

Winter realities

Snow arrives by December and the LR-250 mountain road is salted, not gritted. Guard-rails end ten kilometres short of the village; if a blizzard blows, chains or 4×4 are compulsory. The bakery shortens hours, Casa Ramón closes entirely in February, and the tiny supermarket stocks only UHT milk and tinned tuna. Yet the place still functions: the council clears the pavement at 07:00, the chemist opens three mornings a week, and the priest drives up from Nájera on Sundays.

Those prepared for cold discover a different village. Beech trunks stand charcoal-black against snow, red kites wheel overhead and every chimney puffs wood smoke that smells like a whisky barrel room. Rent one of the stone cottages with a pellet stove (about €90 a night, two-night minimum) and you can sit by the fire listening to nothing except the click of expanding roof tiles.

Getting here without the Ryanair circus

Bilbao is the sanest gateway. A two-hour drive south on the A-68 and then the LR-250 carries you straight into the hills. There are no tolls after Miranda de Ebro, and the only queue is for coffee at the Haro service station. Santander works too, adding twenty minutes. Both airports stay mercifully free of the stag-party traffic that turns Valencia into a Friday-night headache.

Car hire is essential. The last regular bus from Logroño leaves at 19:00 and does not run on Sundays. A taxi from Logroño costs €55 if you pre-book, €70 if you ring on the day. Petrol in the village is non-existent; fill up in Nájera on the way.

Cash, signal and other First-World problems

The sole ATM, inside the mini-market, swallows cards happily on Monday, refuses them on Saturday, and runs out of €20 notes at every bank holiday. Bring cash or be prepared for a 25-minute drive to the nearest reliable machine. Mobile coverage is patchy: Vodafone and EE drop to one bar in the main square, nothing in the alleys. Movistar and Orange fare better. Download offline maps and your walking-route GPX before you leave the hotel Wi-Fi.

Shops still observe the sacred siesta: 14:00–17:00, no exceptions. If you need fresh milk for tea, buy it before lunch or learn to like the UHT stuff.

A village, not a film set

Torrecilla will never tick the “must-see” box demanded by bucket-list travellers. Half a day is enough to cover every street, yet a week slips away if you measure time by forest paths and the smell of new-baked bread. Come for the quiet, not the spectacle; for the way dusk settles over the Iregua like cooling metal; for the moment you realise the church bell is the loudest sound you’ve heard all day.

Leave the same way you arrived—slowly, in low gear, with windows down to catch the scent of broom and wood smoke. Ten minutes down the mountain the traffic on the A-68 roars back into earshot, and Spain’s hurry returns.