Añora

The morning bus from Córdoba drops you at a crossroads with one bar, one cash machine, and a view that stretches fifty kilometres. This is Añora, 624 metres above sea level, a place whose 1,500 inhabitants share their postcode with more holm oaks than neighbours. No sea breeze reaches here; the nearest beach is two hours away in Huelva. Instead, the air carries the resinous scent of dehesa – the open woodland that carpets the rolling hills of Los Pedroches and pays the bills with acorn-fed pork and cork.

A Town That Keeps Its Gates Closed

Whitewashed walls press against narrow lanes barely wide enough for a tractor. Iron grilles guard ground-floor windows, not for security but for shade. Most patios lie behind heavy wooden doors left ajar just enough to reveal a flash of geranium or the twitch of a cat’s tail. Walk slowly and you’ll catch the low murmur of Radio Nacional playing inside, yet the streets themselves stay hushed until the school releases its small battalion at two o’clock. The only obvious monument is the parish church of San Bartolomé, its square tower a useful landmark when the lanes bend back on themselves like a knotted rope. Inside, the single-nave interior is cool and dim; retablos gilded in the 1700s glint above side altars, but the real draw is the roof – a rare Mudéjar frame of interlaced cedar beams that somehow survived the 1755 Lisbon earthquake.

Cork, Acorns and the Pig Economy

Leave the centre by any downhill lane and within five minutes the tarmac thins to a sandy track flanked by stone walls. This is where Añora earns its living. Each holm oak is spaced wide enough for a full-grown ibérico pig to wander underneath, snuffling for the acorns that will turn its ham into €90-a-kilo jamón de bellota. The trees themselves are harvested for cork every nine years; look for the ghostly pale rectangle low on the trunk where the outer bark was stripped away last summer. Spring brings calves, not lambs – the local breed is retinto, rust-coloured and lean – while autumn means the montanera, when pigs fatten on up to ten kilos of acorns a day. If you’re hoping to photograph the animals, arrive at dawn: they retreat into shade once the sun climbs above the sierra.

Walking the Dehesa Without Getting Lost

Three way-marked circuits begin at the southern edge of town. The shortest, the 6 km Ruta de las Encinas, is a leisurely two-hour loop that never loses sight of Añora’s water tower. Yellow paint slashes on fence posts keep you right; the only climb is a 120-metre rise to the Cerro de la Cruz, worth it for the 360-degree sweep across four provinces. Take water – there’s none en route – and expect to share the path with the occasional shepherd on a Honda moped. Mountain bikes cope fine, but skinny road tyres will slide on the loose granite grit. Summer walkers should start before eight; by eleven the thermometer nudges 34 °C and the only shade is under a bull’s belly, as locals say.

What Arrives on the Tuesday Lorry

Añora’s supermarket could fit inside a London petrol station, so fresh produce rolls in on market day: Tuesday, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Plaza de la Constitución. Stallholders from Pedroche bring hams still dusted with white mould; ask for a corte de bellota and you’ll get paper-thin slices carved with a knife longer than your forearm. A kilo of cured loin costs around €28, cheaper than in Córdoba’s gourmet shops and twice as good as anything vacuum-packed at the airport. Goat’s cheese wrapped in chestnut leaves sells for €6; the cooperative on Calle Sancho Miranda stocks the same wheels all week if you miss the market, but closes for siesta at 1.30 sharp.

When the Village Lets Its Hair Down

Mid-August turns the municipal sports ground into a fairground. The Feria de Agosto is emphatically not for tourists: neighbours set up private canvas bars, grandparents dance sevillanas until three, and teenagers invent excuses to linger by the beer stand. Entry is free; a glass of fino costs €1.50 if you know whose uncle is pouring. Earlier in the year, the May pilgrimage to the ermita of San Isidro sees tractors draped in crepe paper leading a slow procession 4 km out of town. After Mass, families sprawl under the oaks for cocido stew eaten from enamel plates. Visitors are welcome, but bring your own cutlery – plastic forks mark you as an outsider faster than mispronouncing Los Pedroches.

Getting Here, Staying Here, Leaving

Two buses a day run from Córdoba’s Estación de Autobuses; the 11 a.m. service arrives at 12:45, the 6 p.m. at 7:45. A single ticket is €6.40, paid to the driver in cash. Driving takes 55 minutes via the A-41 and the CO-240, but note the last petrol station is 25 km away in Villanueva de Córdoba – fill up before you turn off. The single hotel, Hostal Los Pedroches, has twelve rooms overlooking the bullring; doubles are €45 year-round, breakfast an extra €4 for coffee, toast and olive oil squeezed from the family’s own groves. Air-conditioning exists, yet management switches it on only after you ask twice. In winter, night temperatures drop to 2 °C; the same building becomes noticeably draughty.

Añora will never feature on a cruise-ship excursion. It offers no souvenir shops, no flamenco tablao, no sunset yacht charter. What it does give you is the sound of acorns plinking onto a tin roof, the smell of fresh cork baking in the sun, and the realisation that Spain’s interior still runs on a timetable set by pigs, oak trees and the Tuesday market. Arrive with modest expectations and you might leave with a suitcase that smells faintly of jamón – and a conviction that five thousand cork oaks can make a perfectly adequate seaside substitute.