Viguera

At 740 metres above the Iregua valley, Viguera's church bell still marks the hours, though few villagers rush to meet them. The limestone crags behind the houses catch dawn light a full thirty minutes before it reaches Logroño's apartment blocks 22 kilometres north—a time difference you feel rather than read on any schedule.

Morning here begins with the clatter of metal shutters and the smell of woodsmoke that drifts sideways in the mountain air. Farmers in work trousers that have seen three decades queue for coffee at the only bar on Plaza de España; they talk rainfall, not Rioja football scores. By nine the square empties, leaving just the fountain and a handful of British hikers unfolding the Sierra de Cameros leaflet they picked up at Logroño tourist office. The leaflet promises six way-marked routes; what it fails to mention is that the best start directly from the village edge, no car required.

The gradient begins immediately. Cobbled lanes tilt past stone houses whose wooden balconies sag like well-used bookshelves, then dissolve into agricultural tracks that braid upwards through almond and scruffy olive groves. Within fifteen minutes the view opens: a brown-and-green patchwork of cereal plots stitched together by dry-stone walls, the river a silver thread far below. Turn around and the true drama reveals itself—cliffs rising 400 metres, banded like a layer cake in ochre and grey. These are the same cliffs that shelter griffon vultures, and if you walk between February and May you'll hear their hisses long before you spot the birds circling on thermals.

Winter access is straightforward thanks to the LR-254 that stays open even when snow whitens the upper sierra, but bring chains between December and March all the same. Summer visitors face the opposite problem: fierce sun on shadeless paths. Set off at seven, carry two litres of water, and plan to be back before the church clock strikes twelve—temperatures regularly top 35 °C by late morning. Spring and autumn provide the sweet spot, when wild narcissus or heather add splashes of colour and you can walk all day without wilting or freezing.

The most straightforward route is the PR-26, a twelve-kilometre loop that climbs gently to the abandoned hamlet of Peña Raseros before contouring back through pine reforestation. Navigation is simple—follow the red-and-white dashes—yet every year someone relies on phone signal alone and ends up phoning the Guardia Civil after dark. Print the GPX; Google Maps shows farm tracks that no longer exist. Proper boots matter more than tech: the final 200 metres to El Chorrón waterfall are slippery even in dry weather, and from June to November there's usually no water to justify the scramble.

Back in the village, expectations need recalibrating. Viguera contains no medieval palaces, no wine cathedral bodegas. The parish church of San Andrés, rebuilt in the sixteenth century after a fire, is satisfyingly symmetrical but plain. Spend five minutes inside to notice the carved oak choir stalls, then step out again: the building's real role is social, not artistic. Baptisms, funerals and Saturday evening rosary keep the community bound together; visitors are welcome to sit at the rear, but photos during service will earn a sharp "¡Por favor!" from the sacristan.

What the village does offer is space to breathe. British hikers used to Lake District crowds find themselves alone for hours on ridges where the only sound is wind through juniper. Photographers discover that evening light turns the opposite cliffs copper ten minutes before sunset, then magenta, then bruised violet—no filter required. And because Viguera sits on the frontier between valley farmland and true sierra, you can breakfast among vines, lunch beside stone shepherd huts and be back for cold beer before the bar closes its kitchen at four.

Practicalities remain resolutely small-town. There is no cash machine; the nearest hole-in-the-wall is in Villamediana, nine kilometres away, so stuff a few notes in your pocket before you leave Logroño. The tiny grocer on Calle del Medio stocks tinned tuna, UHT milk and excellent local chorizo sealed in vacuum packs—perfect trail food. If you crave a three-course lunch, Restaurante El Refugio serves a no-choice menú del día for €12. Expect soup thick with cabbage, roast lamb that falls off the bone, and a glass of crianza that costs less than a London coffee. Vegetarians get tortilla or grilled cheese with honey; vegans should probably pack sandwiches.

Accommodation within Viguera itself amounts to one rural guesthouse above the bakery—four rooms, shared terrace, unbeatable bakery smells at dawn. Most walkers base themselves in larger Navarrete (twenty minutes by car) where converted monastery cells offer boutique comfort, then drive in for the day. Either way, book ahead for the last weekend in July when the village swells to ten times its size for the fiesta of Santiago. Streets fill with grape-stomping contests, brass bands and the local "Chulo" dance that ends with everyone soaked from the fountain. It's either the best or worst time to visit, depending on your tolerance for fireworks at three in the morning.

When departure day arrives, the return to Logroño feels like slipping down a geological conveyor belt. At 400 metres the air warms noticeably; by 200 metres olive groves have replaced pine, and the motorway roar drowns out birdsong. Viguera's mountain silence lingers in your ears long after the crags disappear in the rear-view mirror, a reminder that in La Rioja the sierra is never far away—just a thirty-minute drive from supermarket to silence, and from city clock to village time, where the hours are still measured by sun on limestone and the slow flap of a vulture's wing.