Casarrubuelos

The clock on the Iglesia de San Andrés says half past eleven, yet the plaza is still in morning shadow. At 622 m above sea level, Casarrubuelos sits high enough on the Meseta for the air to carry a December bite that Londoners would recognise, even though the village lies only 35 km south-west of Sol. The thermometer may read 8 °C, but the wind ripping across the open cereal belt makes it feel closer to freezing—pack a scarf whatever the month.

A grid that never quite happened

Most visitors arrive expecting a classic radial plaza ringed by arcades. What they find is a triangle: Calle Real, Calle del Medio and Calle Nueva meeting at an uneven concrete space that functions as bus stop, playground and outdoor living room. The ayuntamiento, built in 1987, looks like a regional tax office that took a wrong turn off the M-50. That unprepossessing honesty is, oddly, the village’s charm. Casarrubuelos grew in random spurts—1880s land-reform smallholdings, 1960s Franco-era brick rows, 2005 commuter blocks—so the streets read like core samples of Spanish rural history rather than a polished heritage brochure.

Start with the church tower anyway. Stone blocks at the base are 15th-century; the brick belfry was added after a Civil War shell knocked the original off. Push the heavy door at 12:15 and you’ll catch the caretaker closing up, but she usually lets stragglers slip inside for five minutes. Look up: the rib-vault over the altar is painted a dusty wine colour, an 1890s touch most walkers miss because the façade is so plain.

Flatland walks and tractor traffic

Leave the triangle by Calle del Puente, cross the dry Arroyo de Casarruelos (note the missing ‘b’—old maps still spell it that way) and you’re instantly in grain-country. There is no dramatic sierra backdrop, just an ocean of clay soil that grows wheat, olives and the occasional patch of tempranillo. The CAM-SU1 footpath, really a farm track, heads south for 5 km to the next nucleo, Cubas de la Sagra. You’ll share it with the odd Range Rover-sized tractor; step aside—the drivers don’t slow down.

Spring is the window for storks and hen harriers; by July the stubble fields shimmer like hot plate glass and shade is non-existent. Set off before 09:00 or save the idea for an autumn evening when the low sun turns the stubble bronze and the horizon dissolves into a hazy Toledo purple. Round trip to the ruined brick kiln on the hillock takes 45 minutes and gives you the best sunset angle back towards the village roofs.

Lunch without a phrasebook

Casarrubuelos keeps just two bars on the plaza, both Spanish-only and both convinced that a ‘tostada’ is half a baguette sawn lengthways and plastered with tomato. Order a café con leche and you’ll get a glass mug big enough to swim in. Menus are scrawled on wipe-boards: migas (fried breadcrumbs with chorizo), callos (tripe), cocido stew on Thursdays. Vegetarians get tortilla or… tortilla. Prices hover around €9 for a plato combinado, cash preferred. If that sounds too missionary, drive ten minutes to Navalcarnero where Casa Julian will grill you a beef chuletón for €24 and happily produce an English menu—though the waiters still pretend they can’t.

Fiestas that finish early

The patronal fair at the end of November is small, cold and centred on a travelling funfair that takes over the polideportivo car park. Locals insist you try the anís-flavoured doughnuts sold from a van whose paint scheme hasn’t changed since 1978. Summer romería in mid-August is warmer: inflatable castles for the kids, late-night bingo, and a Saturday foam party that empties the plaza at 03:00 when the buses stop. Neither event clogs the roads; you can still park on Calle Real—another reminder that Casarrubuelos is not on the UK trail.

Getting here (and away)

Public transport is the biggest filter. From Barajas T4, take the metro to Pirámides, then overland C-5C to Alcorcón; bus 528 leaves hourly but the last return departs at 21:40. Miss it and a taxi to Madrid costs €55. Hire cars make more sense: the A-42 splits from the M-40, exit 28, 25 minutes in light traffic. Street parking is free on Avenida de la Constitución; ignore the faded blue bays—nobody pays. Winter frosts can catch hire-car drivers out: carry a scraper because the village sits in a frost pocket two degrees colder than central Madrid.

Stay, or day-trip?

There is nowhere to sleep in the village itself. Closest English-speaking reception desks are the Sercotel Villa de Navalcarnero (€55 week-nights, pool closed November–March) and the Ibis Budget by the Alcorcón retail parks (€40, soulless but 24 h reception). Treat Casarrubuelos as a half-day punctuation mark on a loop that takes in Chinchón’s colonnaded plaza or the windmills at Consuegra—both 45 minutes farther south on the CM-42.

When to bail out

If the levante wind is whipping dust across the plateau, the campo becomes a miserably exposed treadmill. Retreat to the covered market in neighbouring Griñón (Friday and Saturday only) and console yourself with cheese from the Hidalgo stall—queso de oveja cured in rosemary, €14 a wedge. Rain is equally effective at cancelling the rural bit; clay paths turn to axle-deep glue within minutes. On such days Casarrubuelos reverts to a place you simply drive through, just as EuropeThisWay warned.

Come with modest expectations and the village delivers a concise sketch of how most Madrileños actually live once the souvenir shops run out: a flat horizon, a strong coffee, a plaza that still knows everyone’s surname. Be out before the sun drops, though—when that wind picks up, even the storks head home.