Spain’s ghost villages mostly abandoned though life returning to some

Villages across Spain used to be full of life, work, celebration, places where people loved, worshipped and mourned their dead.

That changed drastically in the 1950s when an exodus began in remote villages. Machines made many workers redundant. Mines closed and factories relocated, leaving a void.

“People yearned for a better standard of living,” says Faustino Calderón in Madrid, who documents abandoned places on his website. “They saw that life in the cities was different, not as harsh and more affluent – and they wanted to catch up with their parents.”

From village to abandonment

“We often idealized life in the countryside, but people lived badly. Education was barely available. People instead had to focus on survival,” says Ángel Lorenzo Celorrio, 64, a member of the Friends of the Soria Historical Museum.

He takes a keen interest in the abandoned villages in the province of Soria. Peñalcázar is his favourite, says the retired firefighter.

Anyone exploring these villages needs to bring with them a pioneering and adventurous spirit as you enter semi-collapsed churches and houses at your peril. Most abandoned villages lack tourist infrastructure – such as Peñalcázar.

No running water in Peñalcázar

No roads lead to Peñalcázar, which is literally hidden on the plateau of a limestone massif. It is about half an hour’s walk from a track near the sparsely populated village of La Quiñonería, some 140 kilometres west of Zaragoza.

A ghost town par excellence, Peñalcázar is exposed to fierce winds and freezing winters. It towers 1,200 metres above the surrounding hills and cornfields, with its fortress from the Middle Ages, when Moors and Christians waged war in Spain.

A section of the castle wall with battlements has been preserved. The remains of the church and houses look as though they are growing out of the rock. Animal husbandry and agriculture were the only means of subsistence. Villagers had no running water, unimaginable today, and had to drag water uphill on the backs of pack animals from a well in the valley.

Cistus roses aplenty in Aldealcardo

The sign for the village of Aldealcardo, around 160 kilometres north-east of Zaragoza, can still be found on the road to the ski slopes even though life in the village died out in 1975. Every Sunday, the priest would arrive on a donkey for Mass. Now the only sign of life is the grass growing out of the church spire.

The vaults inside the church are largely intact. A modern painting of a head hangs on the wall where the chancel used to be. Someone has placed a stone cross on the dusty floor. Cistus, thistles and flowers push their way up through the ruins.

Life returning to San Vicente de Munilla, La Rioja

Commenting on hygiene in the past, local Angelines Martínez says, “We washed out of buckets and did our business in pots, which we tipped into the stables with the animals.”

Martinez, 74, left the mountain village of San Vicente de Munilla as a 16-year-old full of hope. And she had good reason to be optimistic. The shoe factories in the town of Munilla, where she started working, were moving to the cities, followed by a train of families.

Returning to her village is always nostalgic for Martínez. Her 55-year-old son, Jesús Ángel Pellejero, is the president of an association that looks after the village and organizes an annual festival for former villagers and their descendants in summer.

Squatters moved into the village in the 1980s, and although some houses have been renovated, most remain in an abandoned state. A Spanish-German couple, Alberto Varela Lasuen and Jana Knorrenschild, are among the latest residents. “We lead an alternative life,” says Knorrenschild, a midwife from Düsseldorf who specializes in home births. “For me, this is the best place in the world,” says Lasuen, a sculptor. “The peace and quiet allow me to find myself.”

Only fragments left in Turuncun, La Rioja

Cyclists and motorists whiz past the church and the ruins of houses on the hills above the road. If you take a detour, the road leads to a picnic spot and a path leading to Turuncun. Fragments of life can still be found there. There are only five crosses in the cemetery. Butterflies abound and the dew still glistens on the grass.

Nature is slowly reclaiming this land. But nature also brought life to a halt and sped up depopulation when Turuncun was hit by an earthquake in 1929. Visitors can still sense the area’s morbid charm.