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Guide
What nobody tells you and is worth knowing before you travel through rural Spain: opening hours, transport, money and customs.
In the villages people have lunch between 14:00 and 16:00, and dinner from 21:00 onwards. Many kitchens close at 15:30 and do not open again until the evening: turn up hungry at 17:00 and what you will find is a bar doing sandwiches. Small shops usually close from midday until 17:00, and on Sundays almost everything is shut apart from the bars.
A hire car is far and away the best way to tour the villages: the bus between small villages runs once or twice a day and almost never at weekends. On every village page we tell you how many kilometres and minutes you are from the provincial capital and from the nearest airport, and you get a link to open the route on the map.
Plenty of small villages have neither a petrol station nor a cash machine. Fill the tank in the main town of the district and carry some cash: bars, street markets and small guesthouses sometimes do not take cards. The «Practical info» tab on each village gives you the nearest cash machine and petrol station.
In the prettiest villages the old quarter is usually pedestrianised, or the streets are simply too narrow. The done thing is to leave the car in the car park at the entrance and walk up: it is five minutes and it saves you a lot of grief. Every village page tells you where to park.
Look out for the menú del día (the set lunch menu): on weekdays, two courses, a drink and a pudding for one fixed price. It is the best food at the best price you will find anywhere in Spain, and in the villages it is usually home cooking. Ring ahead if you are going at the weekend: a village of 300 people has one restaurant, and it fills up.
During the fiestas patronales, the village's patron saint festival, the whole place is transformed: music, food and people in the streets until dawn, but also everywhere packed and every bed booked months in advance. Check each village's festival calendar before you book, and decide whether you want to be in the thick of it or well clear of it.
Tap water is drinkable in practically the whole of Spain. Many small villages have no pharmacy of their own, only an on-call one in the next village along; the emergency number across Spain is 112, and it works in English.
In valleys and mountain areas you will lose your mobile data. Download the maps for the area before you set off and save the village page to read offline: our site can be installed as an app and keep the pages with you.
Away from the tourist areas, few people in the villages speak English — but they will help you all the same. Four words of Spanish («hola» — hello, «gracias» — thank you, «por favor» — please, «la cuenta» — the bill) open every door, and asking in the village bar is still the best search engine there is.