Kanpezu (Campezo)

The church door is locked. Again. This is Kanpezu's way of letting visitors know the rules have changed. Forty minutes west of Vitoria-Gasteiz, the Montaña Alavesa begins and tourism, as most Brits understand it, stops. No ticket office, no audio guide, no gift shop selling fridge magnets shaped like bulls. Just stone houses, a pelota court, and the smell of wood smoke drifting down from the hills.

A Village That Works for a Living

Kanpezu sits at 600 metres in a fold of green valleys that roll towards the Rioja border. The main road, the A-3606, brings timber lorries and farm traffic through the centre twice daily. Locals call the place Campezo – the Spanish version still appears on most road signs – but either way it's the administrative hub for a scatter of hamlets that barely add up to 5,000 souls. The cash machine vanished years ago; the last ATM stands fifty kilometres away in Vitoria. Come Friday afternoon the single bank branch is queuing out the door with farmers settling accounts before the weekend.

Yet the village functions. There's a pharmacy, a baker who opens at 6 a.m., and a tiny Dia supermarket where trolleys share the aisle with crates of local apples. Schoolchildren walk home alone. The pelota court hosts matches on Saturday evenings; betting is casual and the bar keeps score on a blackboard. If you want to understand how Basque rural life ticks on once the coastal cities have gone to bed, this is the place to watch the mechanism.

Walking Into Empty Country

The real attraction starts where the tarmac ends. Tracks lead south-east into the Izki Natural Park, one of Europe's largest oak woods, and north-west along the old smugglers' route towards the ruins of Ullibarri. Signposts are in Spanish and Euskera only; the free "Senderos de Álava" leaflet (pick it up in Vitoria first) translates distances into kilometres and gives sketch maps that are accurate enough if you can read contour lines.

A thirty-minute stroll from the church brings you to a ridge that drops away towards the Ebro valley. On clear days the limestone wall of the Sierra de Cantabria floats on the horizon like a breaking wave. Spring brings orchids and the sound of cuckoos; October turns the forest into a copper cathedral and the locals disappear with wicker baskets to hunt boletus mushrooms. Mobile signal dies the moment you leave the road, so download offline maps before setting out. In winter the same paths become muddy troughs; walking boots are essential and a stick helps on the descents.

What to Eat When Everything Shuts

Food is straightforward, heavy, and served on Spanish time. Bar Gure Txoko on the main square does a three-course "menú del día" for €12 that starts with vegetable soup and ends with a slab of Idiazabal cheese and quince paste. Kids recognise the fallback "plato combinado" – chicken, chips, salad – though the chips arrive dusted with pimentón rather than salt and vinegar. Local cider is still, flat, and poured from shoulder height to knock the edges off. If you can't face it, ask for "una botella de agua" and nobody judges.

For something smarter, the Michelin-starred Arrea! is five kilometres outside the village on the road to Santa Cruz de Campezo. The tasting menu runs to seven courses, €80, and includes venison that tasted, to one British palate, exactly like the rich beef stews grandmother used to simmer for Sunday lunch. Book by email; they answer in English within a day and will swap game for fish if you warn them.

Sunday lunchtime is the danger zone. Even the bar that claims "todo el día" stops serving food after 3 p.m.; the kitchen fires go out and the cook goes home to family. Arrive late and you'll be surviving on crisps until Monday.

Rainy-Day Backup

The ALBA interpretation centre, ten minutes' walk uphill from the square, is a single-room exhibition about the Montaña Alavesa's ecology and pastoral life. Descriptions are bilingual Spanish-Euskera but staff hand out English sheets at the desk. One reviewer called it "surprisingly slick for the middle of nowhere" – interactive screens, a short film, and a relief map that lights up to show the old drove roads. Entry is free; it opens Tuesday to Saturday 10–14:00 and 16–19:00, Sundays 10–14:00 only. When Atlantic weather sweeps in across the Cantabrian hills, it's either this or the inside of your hotel room.

Getting There and Away

Public transport exists but follows school and market logic, not tourist logic. One weekday bus leaves Vitoria at 13:15, returns at 7 a.m. the next morning. Saturday adds an afternoon run; Sunday there's nothing. A hire car from Bilbao airport (two hours) or Vitoria (forty minutes) gives flexibility and means you can string Kanpezu with other upland villages – Bernedo, with its fortified church, or the prehistoric caves at nearby Sacabe. Petrol stations close at 8 p.m.; fill up before dinner unless you fancy spending the night.

Driving also solves the altitude question. At 600 metres Kanpezu escapes the worst summer heat of the Basque coast, but winter brings fog that can drop visibility to twenty metres and the occasional dusting of snow. Chains are rarely needed on the main road, but side streets turn icy after dusk. Spring and early autumn are the sweet spots: mild days, cold nights, and a valley that smells of cut grass and wood smoke.

Leaving Without a Souvenir

There isn't one. No one sells tea towels embroidered with the village name; the baker doesn't do artisan sourdough. What you take away is the sound of the church bell striking the hour across empty fields, the sight of an elderly man cycling home with a loaf under his arm, the realisation that rural Europe still functions when nothing is staged for visitors. Drive back towards the A1 and the coast feels louder, faster, more determined to entertain. Kanpezu doesn't care if you liked it; it was never trying to be liked. That, rather than any peak or panorama, is what makes the detour worthwhile.