Chinchón

The bus from Madrid drops you at the top of a hill, and suddenly the city flatness gives way to something altogether sharper. Chinchón sits 45 kilometres southeast of the capital at 874 metres, high enough that the air carries a whiff of pine and the temperature drops a good three degrees. In August this is a blessing; in January you'll wish you'd packed the scarf you left in the hotel.

Below the stop, the Plaza Mayor sinks like a shallow crater into the rock. It's not round, it's not square, it's simply itself—an irregular bowl of ochre walls and green balconies that has doubled as marketplace, theatre and bullring since the fifteenth century. Local wives still string washing between the upper windows, a detail no film crew ever quite believes is real.

Morning manoeuvres

Arrive before eleven and you can claim a metal table in the sun without elbowing through tour groups from the cruise ships docked at Cádiz. The café owners know the British routine: coffee first, photographs second, questions about the menu third. Most keep an English translation behind the bar, though the garlic soup never sounds quite as romantic as sopa de ajo. Order it anyway; the broth is gentle, thickened with egg and smoked paprika, and costs €4.50 for a bowl that steams like a kettle in the cool mountain air.

Streets radiate from the plaza in short, steep bursts. Calle Grande lives up to its name—two minutes uphill past noble doorways whose stone coats of arms are chipped by centuries of cartwheels. Halfway up, the Convento de las Clarisas hides behind an anonymous wooden hatch. Ring the bell between 10:00 and 12:30 and a nun’s voice floats through the grille: “¿Cuántas bolsas?” The biscuits are almond-heavy, sold in €10 paper bags that smell of anise and cloistered gardens. Cards accepted, no photos.

The Iglesia de la Asunción stands just off the main drag, its bulky tower visible from almost everywhere. Inside, Goya’s Asunción de la Virgen hangs above the altar, the brushwork looser, almost Venetian, when you see it up close. Opening hours are perversely short—16:00-18:00 only—and the elderly sacristan asks for fifty cents exact change. Turn up with a fifty-euro note and he’ll simply shake his head.

Uphill to nowhere in particular

Behind the church a cobbled lane climbs to the castle ruins. The fortress belonged to the Counts of Chinchón until French troops blew it up in 1808; what remains is a jagged outline against sky, fenced off since restoration money ran out twenty years ago. Locals swear the interior will reopen “next year”, but for now the reward is the mirador just short of the turnstile: a stone balcony that drops away to the Tajuña valley, its vineyards stitched into geometric greens and browns. Sunset here is twenty minutes earlier than in Madrid; the light slants across the balconies of the plaza and turns the whole town the colour of burnt sugar.

Down again, and the afternoon drift begins. The ethnographic museum on Calle del Conde is basically two rooms of agricultural implements your grandfather would recognise—wooden ploughs, brass bed-warmers, a 1950s anisette still. Entry is free but the place shuts without warning if the attendant’s sister calls her in for lunch. Monday visitors will find the door locked all day; several restaurants follow the same rule, so check ahead rather than trusting rumbling stomachs.

Liquid lunch

By 14:00 the terraces are filling with families who’ve driven up from Getafe after Sunday mass. Waiters in black waistcoats weave between pushchairs carrying clay dishes of roast suckling pig. The skin shatters like sugar glass, the meat beneath mild and milky; a half-ration for two at Asador de la Esquina costs €22 and arrives with a simple lettuce salad dressed in olive oil sharp enough to make your tongue tingle. Wash it down with house wine from the Madrid denomination—surprisingly good value at €12 a bottle—and finish with bollos de fraile, sweet anise buns the size of golf balls.

If you’re still upright, the anise itself deserves a detour. Chinchón produces two versions: the seco (dry) that tastes of faint liquorice and 40% alcohol, and the dulce that resembles liquid Black Jack sweets. Bars will pour a complimentary thimble so you can decide; the correct response is to smack your lips once and say “auténtico” whether you mean it or not. Buy a bottle at the supermarket on Plaza del Mercado—€8.30, half the souvenir-shop price—and pack it carefully for the flight home. UK customs allow one litre duty-free, so the litre-and-a-half bottle is pushing your luck.

When the buses sleep

The last 337 back to Madrid leaves at 21:30 on weekdays, 22:00 at weekends. Miss it and you’re looking at a €70 taxi ride that must be booked; no rank exists because nobody stays that late. The town switches off soon after dusk, shutters rattling down like metal eyelids. What remains is the smell of woodsmoke drifting from chimneys and the echo of your own footsteps on granite. In summer this silence feels luxurious; in winter it can tip towards eerie, especially when the wind funnels through the plaza and sets the wooden balconies creaking.

Snow arrives a handful of days each year, just enough to make the hill roads entertaining. The council spreads grit quickly—Madrid’s politicians own weekend cottages here—but if the forecast threatens white stuff, bring chains or stick to the bus. Conversely, July and August bake the stone until it radiates heat after midnight; the altitude takes the edge off the worst temperatures, but you’ll still want water rather than coffee at midday.

Stretching the legs

Serious walkers can follow the GR-160 footpath that leaves from the cemetery gate and meanders 14 km through olive terraces to Colmenar de Oreja. The route is way-marked but carries no facilities, so pack lunch and start early. Shorter circuits loop south of the castle into pine scrub alive with hoopoes and the occasional Iberian magpie; allow ninety minutes and boots with grip, because the limestone flakes underfoot.

Autumn brings the Fiesta de la Vendimia, when locals tread grapes in an oak barrel parked ostentatiously in the plaza. It’s theatrical rather than efficient—most of the wine comes from industrial bodegas outside town—but free samples flow and the scent of crushed grapes masks the anise for once. Spring is quieter, the balconies splashed with red geraniums against walls the colour of toasted bread. Between Easter and May you’ll share the streets only with dog-walkers and the odd photographer from Condé Nast who’s been tipped off that the light here is “softer than Segovia”.

Parting shot

Chinchón won’t swallow a week unless your idea of bliss is prolonged bar hopping and the complete works of Lope de Vega (born in Madrid, educated here, never quite forgotten). What it does perfectly is provide a dose of Castilian texture close enough to the capital for a lazy breakfast departure and a late-evening return. Bring comfortable shoes, exact change for the church, and a willingness to eat roast meat at an hour when London is still deciding on brunch. The bus rumbles back down the hill, the town shrinks in the rear window, and Madrid’s skyline reappears like a concrete tide. Somewhere behind you, a balcony door slams and the plaza empties until tomorrow’s first coffee cup clinks against saucer.