Cabanillas de la Sierra

The bus from Madrid drops you at the village entrance with a hiss of brakes and a whiff of pine. Forty minutes earlier you were inhaling diesel on Paseo de la Castellana; now the thermometer reads six degrees cooler and the loudest sound is a cockerel that hasn’t checked the timetable. Cabanillas de la Sierra sits at 919 m on the northern lip of the Guadalix valley, high enough to give Mobile 4G the hiccups but low enough that ears don’t pop on the way up. For British visitors who’ve already ticked off Segovia’s aqueduct and Toledo's sword shops, this scatter of stone houses offers something rarer than monuments: silence you can actually walk into.

Stone walls and Sunday closures

A lap of the centre takes twenty minutes if you dawdle. The parish church of San Andrés squats at the top of the hill, its bell tower patched after lightning in 1987. Inside, the smell is of candle stubs and old timber, not incense tourism. Cobbled lanes radiate outwards, just wide enough for a SEAT 600 and a dog. Balconies are painted the colour of ox-blood or left to weather to silver; geraniums appear only when someone remembers to water them. There is no plaza mayor in the usual sense – the village green is a triangle of gravel outside the one remaining bar that opens on Sundays. If you arrive after 15:00 on a weekend, bring sandwiches: the butcher, bakery and even the cash machine shut with militant precision.

Walk fifty metres past the last house and you’re in dehesa – holm oaks and pines grazed by fighting bulls that stare as if you owe them rent. A fingerpost points to the Ermita de la Soledad, fifteen minutes along a stony track. The chapel itself is locked unless the key-keeper’s dog hears footsteps, but the stone bench outside gives a straight-line view south to Madrid’s skyline, a grey smudge on clear days. Binoculars reveal the Four Towers; pollution haze reveals why locals prefer the altitude.

Paths that demand proper shoes

Cabanillas is not a theme-park version of rural Spain. Footpaths exist because farmers still use them, not because a marketing department ordered them. The shortest circular route, marked with splashes of yellow paint, drops into the Cañada Real Soriana, passes an abandoned lime kiln and climbs back through rosemary scrub. Allow an hour, plus time to apologise to horseflies. Longer hikes link to the village of Pedrezuela (7 km) or the Roman bridge at Talamanca del Jarama (12 km), but don’t expect boardwalks or handrails – after rain the clay grips like axle grease and in July the temperature difference between shade and sun can top 15 °C. Walking boots are overkill for the high street, yet trainers will be shredded on the flint paths; pack the boots and save the luggage weight on fancy clothes.

Winter sharpens the deal. Night frosts start in November and snow arrives two or three times a year, enough to turn the bus route into a toboggan run. Day trippers arrive with sledges bought in Carrefour, photograph the church under a dusting of white and are gone by dusk. Stay overnight and you’ll share the streets with residents in quilted coats, the only traffic a quad bike delivering logs. Heating is by butane bottle; if your rental flat feels chilly, the owner will shrug and point at the mountain view – insulation is for the city.

Food you can pronounce

British palates survive here without surrendering to chips-with-everything. Mesón Blanquita will grill a chuletón (T-bone the width of a paperback) and, crucially, will leave it rare if asked. Expect to pay €24 for half a kilo, enough for two unless you’ve just walked the Talamanca loop. El Caminero does a weekday menú del día – three courses, bread, wine and bottled water – for €14. The vegetable soup tastes of actual vegetables, and the roast chicken comes with potatoes roasted in the same fat. Vegetarians get tortilla española thick as a doorstep; vegans get the salad plate and a sympathetic smile. Pudding is usually rice pudding with a cinnamon doodle on top, comfort food for anyone raised on school dinners.

Local bars serve tostas: open-faced toast topped with Serrano ham, goat’s cheese or a paste of tomato and garlic that fights back. Order a media (half portion) if you’re not hiking afterwards – Spanish bread portions were designed for people who ploughed fields. Coffee comes in glasses, not mugs; ask for “café con leche bien caliente” if you dislike lukewarm milk. Tipping is the price of the small change you’re handed; rounding up to the nearest euro keeps everyone happy.

How to arrive without swearing

Public transport exists but was timetabled by someone who hates spontaneity. Continental-Auto line 191 leaves Madrid’s Plaza de Castilla at 08:00, 11:00 and 16:00; the last return is 19:10. Miss it and a taxi to the nearest Metro station at Tres Cantos costs €35. A hire car from Barajas airport reaches the village in 40 minutes on the A-1, then the M-104 mountain road. Petrol stations thin out after km 50 – fill the tank at Venturada, the last village before the climb. Parking is free but not limitless; on summer fiesta weekends you’ll be directed onto a pine-needle verge by a man with a whistle who expects a euro for the favour.

Accommodation is thin on the ground. Camping D’oremor has wooden cabins (€70 a night for two, minimum two nights in high season) and a pool that opens only when the school holidays do. Three private flats are listed on Airbnb; the smartest has underfloor heating and Wi-Fi that drops every time a cloud passes. Book mid-week outside July and September and you can knock 30 % off the advertised rate. There is no hotel, no reception desk, no concierge – if the boiler fails, WhatsApp the owner and practice your Spanish swearwords.

What you won’t get

Cabanillas will not change your life. It has no medieval synagogue, no craft gin distillery, no gift shop selling fridge magnets. The souvenir option is a jar of local honey sold in the bakery for €6; buy two and the owner throws in a plastic spoon. You come here to walk off lunch, to remember that Spanish villages still smell of woodsmoke and pine, and to calculate how quickly you could swap your London commute for a house that costs less than a garage in Croydon. Then the bus engine starts, the thermometer rises, and Madrid’s skyline reappears like a spreadsheet you forgot to close.