Hornos de Moncalvillo

At 674 metres above the Ebro, Hornos de Moncalvillo sits high enough for the air to smell of thyme instead of traffic. The village — 95 souls, two streets and a church — peers over a wrinkle of sierra that separates Logroño’s apartment blocks from cereal fields that glow gold even in winter. Dawn is the moment to arrive: the Sierra de Moncalvillo behind the stone houses catches the first sun and turns a briefly improbable shade of burnt orange, while the valley below is still a soft violet haze.

Stone, silence and the smell of wet slate

There is no centre to speak of, merely a ridge where the road runs out. Park where the tarmac widens — anywhere else blocks a tractor or a neighbour’s gate — and walk. Houses are mortared with the same pink-grey limestone they sit on; balconies are slim enough for one geranium tray, and wooden eaves have turned silver after a century of northerly storms. A couple of newer breeze-block garages interrupt the stone, proof that not every frontage is photogenic, yet the overall colour chart is still biscuit, terracotta and moss.

The Iglesia de San Miguel Arcángel keeps watch from the highest point. It is locked unless mass is due — Sunday at eleven, plus the odd wedding — but the outside repays a slow circuit. Look for the stone carved with a caliper and mason’s mark: local lore says it was salvaged from one of the lime kilns that gave the village its name. Through the keyhole you can glimpse a gilt baroque altarpiece that seems surprised to find itself in such a modest nave.

Paths leave the upper street as naturally as gossip. One drops past vegetable patches to a shepherd’s track that later becomes the GR-190 long-distance footpath; another skirts a ruined farmhouse whose roof beams now house nesting storks. Twenty minutes of gentle climbing brings you to a cattle grid and a view that stretches from the metal roofs of Logroño’s supermarket hangars to the snow-dusted Moncayo massif on the Aragonese horizon. The only soundtrack is wind rattling the wild fennel and, in spring, the liquid two-note call of bee-eaters heading north.

When lunch matters more than the itinerary

Hornos itself offers precisely one public food option: Bar Hornos de Moncalvillo, open four afternoons a week and most Friday evenings. Expect crisps, olives and a tortilla cut into generous wedges; the house wine is a young Tempranillo that costs €1.80 a glass and slips down like fruity Beaujolais. If you need a proper meal, walk two hundred metres down the access lane to Venta Moncalvillo, where chef Ignacio Echapresto turns local mushrooms and river trout into the sort of Michelin-listed plates that cost half what they would in London. The weekday menú de mercado (three courses, water and wine) is €55 and comes with an English translation that actually makes sense — no small thing when you are trying to distinguish between pochas (fresh haricot beans) and pochas stewed with chorizo.

Shops do not exist. Fill the tank in Logroño and stock up on breakfast supplies before you leave: the nearest supermarket is a six-kilometre descent to Entrena, a journey that feels longer because the road wriggles like a dropped string of pearls. Phone signal disappears on the north side of the village, so download offline maps while you still have 4G.

Seasons decide what you can do

Spring arrives late at this altitude; April can still bring a ground frost that blackens the almond blossom. Come May, however, the surrounding cereal fields turn a luminous green that would make a Kentish farmer jealous, and the temperature hovers around a civilised 18 °C — perfect for the five-kilometre loop that links Hornos with neighbour Sojuela and its 13th-century chapel ruins. Summer is a different proposition: midday heat regularly tops 35 °C and shade is confined to the north wall of the church. Early risers win here; set the alarm for 06:30 and you will have the ridge to yourself before the sun climbs high enough to burn the thyme into resin.

Autumn brings perhaps the best balance: vines down in the valley flush scarlet, the air smells of crushed cava grapes and the light softens to honey. Winter is quiet, occasionally snow-quiet. The road is kept clear but the final hairpins ice over after dusk; British visitors towing wide caravans have been known to block the lane for an hour while attempting a 17-point turn. If you insist on a winter weekend, bring chains and a thermos — the bar opens only when the owner can be bothered to sweep the step.

A fiesta that still belongs to locals

The feast of San Miguel on 29 September turns the lane into a temporary carpark and the population triples. Former residents roll up from Bilbao or Barcelona, unpack folding chairs and debate harvest yields over chuletón steaks that dwarf the paper plates. Outsiders are welcome but there is no tourist office, no craft stall, no printed programme. The fireworks start at seven in the morning and again at midnight; if you booked a rural cottage without checking the calendar, you will discover why several TripAdvisor reviewers mention “unexpected pyrotechnics”.

San Blas on 3 February is smaller and sweeter: the priest blesses bread rolls threaded with ribbon, afterwards handed out to anyone who turns up. Children race down the slope afterwards, trailing the ribbon like kite tails. There is no entry fee, no souvenir key-ring, just the feeling of having stumbled into someone else’s family gathering.

Getting there — and away again

From Logroño, take the N-232 towards Zaragoza, fork right on the LR-123 after the Michelin factory and follow the brown signs. Sat-navs consistently underestimate the last ten minutes; the tarmac narrows, the camber tilts and suddenly you are steering above a vineyard canyon with space for only one vehicle at a time. Pull in when you see an oncoming Seat: Spanish farmers reverse faster than British drivers accelerate forwards.

There is no bus. A taxi from Logroño costs about €30 each way and the driver will wait if you pre-arrange. Most visitors treat Hornos as a half-day bolt-on to a Rioja wine tour: leave the city at nine, walk the ridge, eat lunch at Venta Moncalvillo, descend in time for an afternoon tasting in Elciego. That schedule works, yet it misses the best hours. Stay overnight in one of the four rental cottages and you will hear owls where guidebooks promise nightlife, and see stars bright enough to cast shadows across the threshing circle.

Pack a pair of decent boots, a bottle of water and modest expectations: Hornos delivers space, sky and the creak of a metal weather-vane that has measured the wind since before your grandparents were born. Then it hands you back to the valley, where the traffic on the A-12 sounds almost foreign after an afternoon of silence.