Matute

The church bell tolls once—noon exactly—and the only other sound is a tractor grinding across the valley 200 metres below. At 678 m above sea-level, Matute sits just high enough for the air to feel rinsed, the horizon wide enough to make even the Sierra de Cantabria look close enough to touch. The village itself is three streets wide and ten houses deep; you can walk from one end to the other in four minutes, five if you stop to read the stone coat-of-arms above the 1678 doorway.

Stone is the local language. Walls the colour of weathered barley, roofs the shade of burnt toast, and everywhere the soft round of river boulders mortared into place generations ago. The façades carry dates, initials, sometimes a relief of San Martín sharing his cloak—advertising piety and prosperity in equal measure. Look up and you’ll notice the church tower leans a thumb’s width east; the priest claims it’s “praying towards Jerusalem,” the builder blames the north wind.

Walking without way-markers

Paths leave the village as if embarrassed by company, narrowing to single-file between wheat and tempranillo vines. Head south-west and you drop gently to the Najerilla river, then climb again to Cordovín (6 km), whose bar opens at eleven for coffee strong enough to restart a heart. Go east and the track lifts you onto a cereal plateau where larks rise like sparks; Hormilla appears 5 km later, its stone bell-tower floating above the heat haze. Neither route is mountainous, but the gain is enough to remind calf muscles they still have opinions. After rain the clay sticks to boots like cold toffee; in July the dust is fine enough to powder your socks.

The valley works for a living. Tractors buzz at first light, and during harvest the air smells of crushed grape stalk and diesel. This is not wilderness prettified for weekenders; it is a farm with a village in the middle. Walk at dusk and you may meet a farmer on a quad bike, two spaniels balanced on the fuel tank, who will raise a hand without slowing down. Nod back—conversation can wait until the grapes are in.

What you’ll eat (and where you’ll eat it)

Matute itself has one bar, opens when the owner’s kitchen clock says so, and serves a fixed lunch on Sundays only: garbanzos with spinach, lamb chops the size of playing cards, quince jelly and cheese. Price last autumn was €14 including half a bottle of crianza; payment is cash in an old tobacco tin. The rest of the week you’re self-catering or driving. Ten minutes down the hill, Nájera has supermarkets, bakeries and a Saturday market where stallholders still shout the price of peppers like an auction. Buy a wedge of camerano goat’s cheese—milder than cheddar, nutty rather than goaty—and a bottle of locally labelled crianza for under €7; you’ll lunch better than in most city restaurants.

If you book a bodega tasting, do it before you come up the mountain. Logroño’s Calle Laurel is only 35 km away, yet after dark the winding LR-206 feels longer, especially if the wine has been generous. Better to sleep in the capital, tapas-crawl between mushroom skewers and Rioja alavesa, then escape the stag-party noise the next morning by pointing the hire car towards the empty ridge.

Seasons and silence

Spring arrives late at this height; frosts can nip until mid-April, but the reward is a haze of almond blossom that makes the stone houses look even darker. May brings the Cruces festival: two flower-decked crosses carried through the lanes, followed by dinner in the square and dancing that finishes before midnight—village discipline. Summer days top 32 °C, yet the air thins after sunset; you’ll want a jumper even in August. Autumn smells of yeast and woodsmoke; winter is serious. Snow is rare but not impossible, and the road from Nájera gets grit not glamour. If you fancy a Christmas card scene, rent a four-wheel-drive and pack chains; otherwise plan between April and October.

Mobile signal flickers like a bad fluorescent tube. Download offline maps before you leave Logroño, and tell someone where you’re walking. The pay-off is silence so complete you can hear your own pulse after the second glass of rioja.

The honest downsides

There is no ATM, no petrol station, no pharmacy. The tiny shop keeps eccentric hours—closed Monday, open 09:30–11:00 Tuesday to Friday, Saturday “if I’m back from the fields.” Public transport means one bus from Logroño at 07:45, returning at 18:00, and it doesn’t run on Sundays or fiesta days. Without a car you are effectively marooned. English is non-existent; a phrasebook and goodwill matter more than GPS.

Crowds? Not exactly, yet Sunday lunch can see twenty vehicles squeezed between the church and the cemetery wall, every boot lid open while families unload paella pans for the communal tables. Come mid-week and you’ll share the streets only with a ginger cat who has perfected the art of walking in front of you without ever being stroked.

Making it work

Fly to Bilbao with Ryanair (Stansted or Manchester), pick up a hire car, and reach Logroño in 90 minutes on the A-68. Fill the tank—diesel is cheaper than in the UK—and buy groceries before aiming the sat-nav at “Matute, La Rioja.” The last 12 km are country lanes; keep headlights on for the occasional tractor round a blind bend. Allow three hours for the village itself: church, coats-of-arms stroll, short valley circuit, coffee in the bar if open. Pair the visit with nearby San Millán de la Cogolla and its Visigothic monasteries, or loop through the Sierra de la Demanda for beech forest that could be the Lake District with better wine.

Leave before nightfall if you’re staying in Logroño; stay overnight only if you’ve booked one of the two village houses that rent rooms. Bring cash, a corkscrew, and expectations set to “slow.” Matute will not entertain you; it will let you stop. Sometimes that is exactly what a holiday is for.