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By carAlejandro Vallejo Ortega — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)Sierra Norte de Guadalajara, Spain · Spain
A region where everything is built from the same stone: slabs of black slate stacked without mortar, tilted slightly so the water runs off. Walls, roofs, fences, ovens and even the benches in the squares. It was not an aesthetic decision but the only possible one: there was nothing else here. It lies an hour and a half from Madrid, in the Sierra Norte de Guadalajara, and most of its villages have fewer than fifty inhabitants.
Tamajón, Almiruete and Valverde · 25 km
Basilio — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)heritage
The gateway to the region coming from the south, and the last village before the stone changes colour. It has a church of Romanesque origin, the Renaissance palace of the Mendoza family, now the town hall, the ruins of a Franciscan convent and, on the outskirts, the so-called Enchanted City of Tamajón: a cluster of eroded limestone rocks.
Arrive with a full tank: there is no petrol station here or up in the mountains.
10 min to the next stop · 7 km
Monmr — Public domain (Wikimedia Commons)culture
Here the slate begins. A village of barely twenty residents where every February the Botargas and Mascaritas come out, carnival figures in patchwork costumes and masks, a centuries-old tradition that the village revived after it had been lost for years. There is a museum in the village that keeps them.
Look at how the slate slabs are set in the walls: no mortar, wedged one over another and tilted slightly so the water runs outwards. That is the whole technique.
25 min to the next stop · 18 km
Bea from Madrid, Spain — CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)nature
Eighty-five inhabitants at the foot of the eastern face of the Ocejón, and the most complete village of the black architecture. From here a ninety-minute path leads to the Chorreras de Despeñalagua, a succession of waterfalls dropping more than a hundred metres. And during the Octave of Corpus Christi, usually in June, the ritual dances of the Danzantes de Valverde are performed.
The path to the falls is easy but with a climb, and in summer the waterfall runs with very little water. In spring, after the thaw, is when it truly impresses.
Campillejo, Campillo de Ranas, Roblelacasa and Majaelrayo · 53 km
Luis Rogelio HM — CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)heritage
A hamlet of barely a dozen houses where slate covers absolutely everything: walls, roofs, the fences around the vegetable plots and even the benches in the square. It is one of the most uniform ensembles in the whole region.
The only monument here is a small hermitage. You come to see a whole village built from a single stone, and that takes fifteen minutes on foot to grasp.
10 min to the next stop · 5 km
Diego López — CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)heritage
The village that structures the route and the one with the finest square. Its church of Santa María Magdalena is built entirely in slate, bell tower included, and is among the best examples of the black architecture. Four hamlets and two villages depend on it.
This is where you will find the most places to eat on the western slope. Outside weekends, call ahead.
5 min to the next stop · 4 km
jacilluch — CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)culture
One of the best-preserved ensembles of black architecture: single-storey houses with slate walls and roofs and streets paved with the same stone, as if the whole village had been carved from a single block.
Walk through it slowly and look at the roofs and the paving of the streets: it is all the same slate.
10 min to the next stop · 6 km
Asqueladd — CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)viewpoints
The northernmost village on the route, right at the foot of the Ocejón, which rises behind it as a near-perfect cone of over two thousand metres. For centuries it was a village of transhumant shepherds, and that economy explains the size of the slate pens surrounding the houses.
The Ocejón is visible from the village square and that is the picture. Climbing to the summit takes two to three hours one way; if you are not going up, the view from below already tells the story.
Robleluengo and Tejera Negra · 88 km
Malopez 21 — CC BY-SA 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons)heritage
A slate hamlet surrounded by a hundred-year-old oak wood, its façades covered in plants: one of the quietest corners of the black architecture.
It is among the least visited villages on the route and is usually completely empty on weekdays. If you want the photograph with nobody in it, this is the place.
115 min to the next stop · 88 km
Luiyo from Madrid, Spain — CC BY-SA 2.0 (Wikimedia Commons)nature
One of the southernmost beech woods in Europe, a forest left stranded here when the climate warmed after the last ice age and which survives on the humidity of these valleys. In 2017 UNESCO added it to the World Heritage list alongside Europe's primeval beech forests.
Access is regulated: in autumn, when everyone wants to come, you must book a parking space to drive up to the Senda de Carretas, and spaces are limited. Walking in from the visitor centre needs no booking. Check before planning your day.
This getaway is in the app, day by day, with every stop on the map, the drives between them and where to sleep, and the option to save it for when there is no signal.
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