Sotés

Morning Light on Stone and Soil

The church tower of San Millán catches the first sun before anything else moves. At 672 metres above sea level, Sotes wakes slowly—no café shutters rattling up, no delivery vans—just the tower's stone turning gold while swallows trace circles overhead. This is how the day begins: light first, then the distant cough of a tractor, then nothing again for twenty minutes.

Two hundred and ninety-six people live here, scattered across stone houses that lean slightly into the hill. They don't bother with house numbers. Everyone knows the baker lives opposite the old bread oven, the retired teacher beside the hollow chestnut tree. The village occupies barely two streets and a handful of goats could cross it faster than you'd finish a cup of tea—if you could find one served after breakfast.

Walking Through Three Centuries Before Lunch

Start at the church. The base walls are twelfth-century Romanesque, thick enough to swallow sound, while the upper reaches got a Baroque facelift when someone decided the tower needed to be seen from the next valley. Inside, the air smells of candle wax and wet stone; outside, the plaza is cobbled with river pebbles that click under walking boots like distant castanets.

From here, wander. That's the official activity. Peer into doorways where family coats of arms—lions, stars, a single puzzled unicorn—have been carved into limestone lintels. Notice how the brickwork changes colour: ochre at ground level where winter rain splashes, then warmer reds above head height where the sun lingers. Timber balconies sag under geraniums that nobody remembers planting. An elderly man might offer directions, though they're unnecessary; every lane ends at vineyards within three minutes.

Leave the centre by the track signposted "Navarrete 5 km". Within five minutes the village shrinks to a biscuit-coloured smudge between folds of land. Vine rows run straight as railway lines until the terrain bucks, then they surrender and follow the contour. Wheat stubble in neighbouring fields glows silver-blonde in morning light, while beyond, the Cantabrian ridges bruise the horizon Prussian blue. This is the view that persuades British second-home owners to swap city commutes for a mortgage on a cottage with two-foot-thick walls and no central heating.

Wine Without the Sales Spiel

Back in the lanes, peer over low walls into private patios where plastic barrels wait for harvest. Several households still make 500–1,000 bottles a year, enough for weddings and Christmas. Knock politely—many will pour you a glass from last year's vintage just to watch your eyebrows rise. The local Macabeo white slips down like chilled cider, a safer breakfast choice than the tempranillo at 14.5 percent.

Serious tastings happen three kilometres away at Bodegas San Millán, a family outfit housed in a former olive mill. Visits aren't sold online; you telephone the night before and someone's cousin unlocks the door at eleven. The tour lasts twenty minutes, costs nothing, and ends with three wines and a plate of chorizo carved with a penknife. Buy a bottle and they'll hunt for an empty cardboard box that once held tractor oil, line it with yesterday's newspaper, and present it like a trophy.

When the Village Throws Off Its Blanket

August changes the rules. The fiesta of San Millán drags exiles back from Bilbao and Barcelona, doubling the population for four days. Brass bands rehearse at two in the morning, children career down the slide erected beside the church, and someone always drives a quad bike into the fountain. Visitors are handed a program printed on pink paper; ignore the formal wording—nobody sticks to the timetable and the best concert happens in the bakery doorway at dawn when the bread ovens glow.

Book accommodation early, though "early" here means "before your neighbour mentions it". The only self-catering house with a decent Wi-Fi signal, El Colorao, sleeps fourteen and gets snapped up by extended families from Berkshire who divide the €240 nightly rate and still consider it cheaper than a Travelodge by Heathrow. Bring cash for the village raffle; first prize is a ham leg, second prize is two ham legs, and the draw takes place in the street because the municipal hall only fits thirty people.

Getting There, Staying Awake

Fly to Bilbao, collect a hire car, and head south-east on the A-68. After Logroño, take the LR-250 and watch for tractors pulling trailers of grapes during September; they have right of way and they know it. The turn-off appears suddenly after a crest—blink and you'll reach Navarrete's industrial estate instead. Parking sits beside the frontón court; it is free, unmarked, and usually empty except for one determined cat asleep on the warm tarmac.

Public transport? Forget it. A single school bus passes through at dawn and again at three in the afternoon, but drivers refuse tourists with luggage and the timetable changes according to the matador's schedule on television. A taxi from Logroño station costs €35 and the operator will want your surname pronounced in Spanish before they dispatch the car.

Check into your casa rural between five and seven; earlier means the cleaner is still wrestling the previous guests' recycling into colour-coded bags. Expect stone floors that radiate cold even in May, a shower the width of a telephone box, and a welcome pack of supermarket Rioja plus one packet of Mantecados biscuits. The owners live in Logroño and leave the key under a flowerpot—they're not being rude, just realistic about Spanish public holidays.

What the Brochures Never Mention

Evening dining options close early. Bar El Frontón serves tortilla sandwiches until nine-thirty; after that you are officially hungry until breakfast. The Michelin-starred Venta de Moncalvillo six kilometres away will grill you a solitary lamb chop without the tasting menu, but you must reserve by four and the road back is pitch black—bring a torch for the car park. Alternatively, buy ingredients in Navarrete's Carrefour before arrival and master the ancient art of cooking chops on a brick barbecue while bats flick overhead.

Mobile signal wobbles. Vodafone and Three drop to one bar beside the bakery; EE fares better near the church. Download offline maps and screenshot your confirmation emails because the village's only Wi-Fi router lives in the mayor's office and goes off at weekends.

Winter visits require caution. The LR-250 climbs to 800 m and frost lingers until eleven; in January the road can glitter like a disco ball. Snow is rare but when it arrives the council owns one plough for seventeen villages—pack biscuits and a blanket just in case.

Last Orders at Ten

By nine-thirty the streets belong to cats and the occasional policeman walking off duty. Stand beneath the church tower and listen: nothing, then a door latch, then the soft thud of grapes dropping into a metal trough somewhere out of sight. This is Sotes doing what it has always done—producing wine, growing wheat, keeping the light on for anyone who prefers silence to soundtrack.

Come for a morning, linger for lunch, walk until the village shrinks into landscape. Leave before you wonder what broadband speed you might get if you stayed. Sotes isn't hiding; it simply never learned to shout.