Villar del Olmo

Forty minutes from the capital, the thermometer already drops

Leave Madrid at sea-level heat and by the time the A-3 unravels past Arganda the outside temperature gauge on the dashboard will read four degrees less. Villar del Olmo sits at 675 m, high enough to shave the edge off summer but not high enough for alpine drama. The first thing visitors notice is the wind: it rolls unchecked across the cereal plains of the Vegas corridor and whistles through the single traffic light on the CM-311. Bring a jacket even in May; the locals do.

The village spreads north–south along a low ridge. Everything worth looking at happens within ten minutes' walk of the 16th-century church tower, which is handy because nothing stays open after 14.00 on a weekday except the pharmacy and the filling station. Park on the southern edge where the agricultural tracks begin – tarmac gives way to packed clay exactly at the last house, a fact that surprises drivers who assume Spain's road network keeps going forever.

Stone, clay and the colour of dry earth

San Bartolomé church closes its doors at 13.00 sharp, so late risers peer through the wrought-iron grille at a single nave rebuilt after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. The real fabric is outside: walls of mud and straw (tapial) patched later with brick, a patchwork that tells you how often the place shook. Walk clockwise and you reach Calle del Medio, where two-storey houses still carry stone lintels carved with the original owner's initials and the date – 1734, 1789, 1821. Someone's great-great-grandfather levelled that beam with a hand chisel; the edges remain knife-straight.

Doors open without warning. A woman shakes a tablecloth, offers a nod, closes the gate. Through the gap you glimpse the standard Madrid-region patio: geraniums, a motorbike, two chickens and a satellite dish. No souvenir shops, no menu boards in four languages, just the smell of oregano drifting from a kitchen window. The effect is disorientating if you have spent the morning on Gran Vía.

Paths that belong to tractors

Three signed footpaths leave the village, all of them old livestock drovers' routes. The shortest, the PR-M 16, is a 7 km loop south-east toward the abandoned hamlet of Huelamos. The markers are yellow paint splashes on fence posts; if a post has fallen, you rely on the tractor ruts. Spring brings green wheat and poppies, July brings cracked ochre earth and the occasional rattlesnake track pressed into the dust. Take more water than you think – the only bar en route is in Huelamos, population two, and it opens Saturdays only.

Cyclists do better. The network of farm tracks forms a grid: flat, almost traffic-free, and sheltered by nothing taller than an olive stump. A circular 25 km spin through Valdilecha and Carabaña takes ninety minutes, after which the café on Plaza de la Constitución serves cortado for €1.20 and won't charge extra for the outdoor table. Lock your bike to the town-hall railings; nobody else bothers.

Food that arrives with the wind

There is no restaurant, only Bar Viriato and Mesón de Paco, both on the same square. The menu is written on a whiteboard and changes with the cook's mood. Expect cocido stew on Tuesdays, migas (fried breadcrumbs with garlic and chorizo) on festival days, and partridge in red wine when the hunters have had a good Saturday. A three-course lunch with wine runs €12–14; they will not split the bill, so bring cash. If the board says "producto de la zona" it usually means olives from Campo Real and wine from Arganda del Rey – both villages ten minutes away, which counts as local when you live on the meseta.

Saturday hosts a small produce market under the plane trees. One stall sells honey scented with thyme and rosemary, another offers morcón (a fat chorizo) sliced to order. Arrive before 11.00; by noon the traders are packing up and the square smells of truck exhaust and fresh bread.

When the plain turns white

Winter arrives overnight. At 675 m the village catches the first polar front that slips across the Central Range, and when snow falls the CM-311 becomes impassable before the gritters leave the depot in Arganda. Day-trippers who come for the nativity scene inside San Bartolomé sometimes find themselves stranded until mid-afternoon; locals keep a shovel by the front door and know which drift conceals the road edge. The upside is silence: wind turbines on the horizon stall in cold air, and the only sound is the church bell striking the quarter. Bring chains between December and March, or simply wait – by 14.00 the sun usually wins.

Summer, by contrast, is a hair-dryer. Temperatures still reach 38 °C, but the air is thinner and shade hard to find. The council has installed a single drinking fountain on Calle Real; it overflows onto the pavement and keeps the stone cool for a metre around. Children ride bikes through the jet of water; grandparents pull plastic chairs into the spray. It passes for air-conditioning.

Getting there, getting out

From Madrid-Barajas airport take the A-3 towards Valencia, exit 22 (Campo Real), then follow the M-313 and CM-311 north. Total driving time is 40 minutes on a quiet day, twice that on Friday afternoon when half of Madrid heads for the beach. There is no train; buses leave Estación Sur at 08:15 and 16:00, return at 07:00 and 15:00, fewer on Sundays. Buy the ticket on board (€3.40 each way) and tell the driver you want "el pueblo, no la autovía" or you will be dropped at the junction three kilometres short.

Accommodation is scarce. The nearest legal rental is a converted grain store near Nuevo Baztán, fifteen minutes by car, with underfloor heating and a pool that overlooks the olive groves. Book early for April–May; photographers flock here when the wheat turns emerald and the wind turbines stand in morning mist. Otherwise stay in Arganda and drive up for the day – the evening light on the return journey is worth the rental fuel alone.

Leave before you run out of bread

Villar del Olmo does not reward lingering after dark. The single cash machine runs out of money on festival weekends, the bakery sells the last baguette at 20.00, and the streetlights switch off at 01.00 to save the council €3,000 a year. Come for the temperature drop, the stone initials, the sound of grain silos creaking in the breeze. Then point the bonnet downhill, watch the altitude tick back to sea level, and notice how quickly Madrid's heat reclaims the windscreen.