Canales de la Sierra

The bread van brakes at 11 sharp outside Casa Consistorial, engine ticking while the driver hands out yesterday’s euros in change. By half past, the engine note has faded up the LR-113 and silence returns to 1,050 m of altitude. That is the daily soundtrack in Canales de la Sierra: a diesel interlude, then the wind moving through beech leaves and the clank of a distant tractor. Eighty-three souls are on the padron, but in January you will meet only nineteen of them. The others have decamped to Logroño or Bilbao, returning for long weekends when the hayedo turns copper and the village smells of wood smoke.

Stone houses shoulder together as if for warmth. Roofs are heavy with grey slate, balconies just wide enough for a flowerpot and a coffee cup. Passages are narrow enough that winter sun never reaches the ground; in July this is welcome shade, in February it means packed snow lingers for days. Look up and the Sierra de la Demanda tops out at 2,200 m, still white well into April. Look down and cobbles are polished by centuries of hobnailed boots heading for the forest to cut beech, gather mushrooms or, earlier still, to make charcoal.

You will not need an itinerary here. Walk the two streets, peer into the forge that is now a woodshed, and you have seen the “centro histórico”. The parish church of San Miguel Arcángel squats at the top, a single-volume stone box whose bell once rang to warn of wolves. The door is usually unlocked; inside, the air is cool and smells of wax and granite. Light a candle if you wish—coins go in the box marked “electricidad”.

Outside, a stone water trough still carries a trickle from the mountain. Until the 1970s women carried washing here; now it is a stopping point for hikers rinsing socks. From the trough a path slips between walnut trees and enters the beech wood. Within ten minutes mobile reception dies and the temperature drops three degrees. You are on the GR-190, a long-distance trail that crosses the whole range, but you need not commit to a grand route. Follow the red-and-white blazes for half an hour and you reach a clearing where Anguiano’s cliffs appear across the valley like fortress walls. Sit on a felled trunk and the only movement is a red kite tilting on thermals.

Come autumn, this is mushroom territory. Local etiquette is strict: carry a knife, cut at the stem, never rake the earth. If you cannot tell a cep from a death cap, leave the basket at home and bring a camera instead. Porcini, chanterelles and milk-caps fetch high prices in Logroño markets, so villagers are protective of patches; asking “¿Hay setas por ahí?” rarely produces more than a polite shrug.

Evenings centre on the one bar, which doubles as the village shop. Bread arrives frozen and is baked in a domestic oven behind the counter. Order a caña and you will be asked where you walked; produce a map and someone’s cousin will appear with a biro to mark a better circuit. Food is simple: menestra de verduras (a gentle vegetable stew), morcilla de Burgos, and chuletón al estilo riojano—an enormous beef rib-eye that covers the plate. Brits used to rare meat should say “poco hecho”; anything else emerges grey. Prices are gentle: €12 for the stew, €28 the steak (2023 menu), cash only because the card machine “hace ruido pero no pasa nada”.

The accommodation choice is equally straightforward. There are two legal rentals: La Villa, a three-room guesthouse run by a retired couple from Zaragoza, and an apartment above the old school. British guests on Booking.com praise the owners’ patience with phrase-book Spanish and the provision of electric blankets even in June—nights at this height hover around 12 °C in midsummer. Expect tiled floors, pine furniture and a shower that delivers either scalding or Antarctic water, never both at once. What you get instead is silence so complete that earplugs feel redundant.

Access is the biggest hurdle. The nearest airport with UK flights is Burgos (Ryanair from Stansted, twice weekly, 1 h 15 min). From the terminal you drive north on the A-1, then swing onto the LR-113 at Santo Domingo de la Calzada. The final 35 km are mountain arithmetic: thirty-seven bends, two single-lane tunnels, stone walls brushed by your wing mirrors. Petrol stations close at 21:00; fill up before you leave the motorway. In winter the same road is gritted but gradients touch 12 %; carry chains from December onwards. If the pass is closed, the diversion via Ezcaray adds an hour.

Weather governs what is possible. Between May and October you can walk anywhere; waymarks are fresh and bars stay open. November brings mist that clings to the valleys, ideal for photographers, lethal for navigation. January means snowshoes if you want to leave the tarmac; the village fountain freezes solid and the bar shuts on Mondays. Yet winter has its rewards. On a blue-sky morning after snowfall, the beech wood becomes a cathedral of white columns, and your footprints are the first since the shepherd passed at dawn.

Do not come seeking souvenirs. There is no pottery workshop, no artisan cheese, not even a fridge magnet. The single shop stocks tinned tuna, UHT milk and fire-lighters; bread appears when the van does, fresh fish never. Bring hiking boots, a fleece for evening and enough Spanish to say “Buenos días, ¿hay una mesa?” The pay-off is one of the quietest corners of western Europe, where the forest starts at the last streetlamp and the night sky still shows the Milky Way in toothpaste detail.

Leave early enough to meet the bread van, stay long enough to watch Orion climb over the church roof, then drive down the switchbacks while the sun lights up the Duratón valley five hundred metres below. You will not have ticked off a cathedral, a Michelin star or even an ATM, but you will have heard what rural Spain sounds like when almost everyone else has gone.