Meco

The 07:43 C-2 from Madrid Atocha disgorges a stream of laptop bags and coffee flasks onto Alcalá's platform. Half of them will board the waiting 250 bus, ride it twelve minutes past polytunnels and advertising billboards, then step off in Meco's Plaza de España before eight-thirty. By nine the square is quiet again, the only movement a waiter hosing down last night's tapas debris outside Mesón de Paco. Forty kilometres from the capital, altitude 669 m, the village has become a sleeper town with a licence to farm still showing in the margins.

Fields Between the Estates

Meco's newer housing blocks sit on what were wheat parcels until the 1990s. Walk five minutes south along Calle de los Huertos and the streets simply stop; the ground reverts to ochre earth and waist-high cereal. A grid of agricultural tracks—wide enough for a combine harvester—fans out towards olive groves that shimmer silver when the wind blows from the Guadarrama. There are no way-marked footpaths, just the original drove roads, so you can stride for an hour without seeing anyone except the occasional farmer on a quad bike checking moisture levels. Spring brings the classic colour change: luminous green barley in April, then gold stubble by late June that scratches the sky like wire wool. In autumn the ploughed soil smells of iron after rain, and the horizon feels ten kilometres away.

The plateau climate is harsher than Madrid's. Winter dawns can hover at –3 °C while the capital still reports 5 °C; summer mid-afternoons regularly top 38 °C with no shade except the church portico. Plan walks for before 11:00 or after 17:00 between June and August, and carry more water than you think sensible—there are no cafés once you leave the centre.

A Centre That Takes Twenty Minutes

Nuestra Señora de la Asunción squats at the top of a short rise, its bell tower visible from almost everywhere because almost everywhere is flat. The building is 15th-century at its core, re-dressed in Baroque stone after a fire, and locked more often than not. Knock on the presbytery door if you want to see the single-nave interior; if nobody answers, console yourself with the stone gargoyles—one is clearly a guinea pig, a nod to the South-American wealth that once funded repairs. Below the church, the original village grid is three streets by four, brick houses with wooden balconies painted the colour of dried blood. Number 9 Plaza de España still has a 19th-century grain store on the first floor, the slots where produce was hoisted now filled with terracotta pots of geraniums.

There is no museum, no interpretation centre, no artisan chocolate shop. Instead you get daily life: a baker sweeping his doorway at dawn, schoolchildren kicking footballs against the 18th-century washing trough, mothers shouting "Lucía, los deberes" from first-floor windows. It feels lived-in rather than curated, and that is the appeal.

What You're Actually Going to Eat

Meco's restaurants know their clientele: office workers who want a three-course lunch for €12 and retirees who expect cast-iron cocido on Wednesdays. At Restaurante El Henar they still serve the stew in the traditional sequence—broth with noodles first, then chickpeas, cabbage and the boiled knuckle of ham presented on a separate platter. If that sounds like agricultural rations, order the grilled entrecôte at Mesón de Paco; the chips arrive heaped like Jenga blocks and the meat is local, charcoal-seared, pink in the middle. Vegetarians get a thin but honest roasted-pepper salad and a tortilla thick enough to tile a roof. To drink, ask for "vino de la casa blanco"; it comes from Arganda del Rey, ten minutes down the CM-100, and tastes of green apples with none of the oak that can overpower white Rioja. A glass sets you back €2.20; the bottle on the table is often cheaper than two individual pours.

Getting Here Without the Commuter Crush

Public transport is painless if you avoid Madrid rush hours. From Atocha or Chamartín take the C-2 Cercanías to Alcalá de Henares (33 min, €3.90), then the yellow 250 bus that terminates outside Meco's health centre (12 min, €1.40). Buses leave roughly every thirty minutes until 22:00. Coming straight from Barajas airport? A taxi costs €55–70 depending on traffic and the driver's mood; allow 35 minutes on the toll-free M-40 and A-2. Car hire is worthwhile only if you plan to tack on Alcalá's university quarter or the windmill town of Campo de Criptana afterwards; central Meco is walkable and parking is free.

The Calendar No One Prints

Visit in late April and you'll see tractors draped in papier-mâché flowers crawling towards the church for the Rogativas de San Marcos—an agricultural prayer for rain that doubles as a village parade. August 15 brings the main fiestas: brass bands at midnight, paella for 800 in the sports pavilion, and a fairground that takes over the football pitch for four days. These events are aimed at locals; visitors are welcome but there are no bilingual programmes or VIP packages. Turn up, buy a €3 raffle ticket for a ham, and you'll be treated like a cousin who has been away for years.

The Brutally Honest Itinerary

With ninety minutes you can circle the old centre, peer through the church grilles, drink a caña in Plaza de España and photograph the grain store. That really is enough, and plenty of Madrileños do exactly that before heading back for Sunday lunch in the city.

Give it a day and the rhythm improves. Arrive at 10:30, walk the agricultural loop south-east towards the ruined sheepfolds (6 km, flat, no shade). Back in town by 13:00 for cocido, siesta on a bench under the plane trees, then a gentle 3 km north to the abandoned brick kiln that used to supply Madrid's 1960s housing boom. The kiln's chimney still stands 25 m high, swallows nesting in the flue. Finish with churros and chocolate at Cafetería El Mirlo while the owner watches BBC World on a muted television—he lived in Watford for three years and wants to discuss the Premier League.

Stay overnight and you will discover the downside: evenings are whisper-quiet once the commuters drive home. A handful of bars stay open until 23:00, but if you want nightlife beyond that you'll need to return to Alcalá or Madrid. Book an Airbnb with a pool and embrace the silence; star visibility is better here than in most of rural England because the plateau air is dry and the nearest big city keeps its glow forty kilometres west.

Meco will never make anyone's "top ten villages in Spain" list, and that is precisely why it is worth a detour. It offers a sampler of Castilian life—grain fields, brick churches, cocido on Wednesdays—without the coach-party choreography of more celebrated towns. Come for the agricultural soundtrack, the steak that costs half the capital's price, and the realisation that commuter belts can still keep a rooster in the back garden. Leave before you start expecting fireworks, and the village will have done its job.