Villanueva del Duque

The baker’s van beeps its way through the single-lane high street at eight sharp, tailgate flung open to reveal trays still warm from Hinojosa’s ovens. By half past, the only sound is the scrape of a metal chair on concrete as Don Pepe sets out his bar’s two pavement tables. Villanueva del Duque has started its day, and 1 406 locals plus however many rented villas’ worth of foreigners already outnumber the resident population.

Dehesa on the doorstep

Stand on the tiny Plaza de España, spin 360 degrees, and every horizon is a rolling crochet of holm oaks. These are the dehesas of Los Pedroches, a man-made savannah that keeps Spain in jamón and the village in oxygen. At 585 m the air is thinner than on the Costa del Sol but still heavy with wild-thyme and, in October, the sweet rot of chanterelles. Footpaths strike out from the last streetlamp; within fifteen minutes you can be among boars, booted eagles and the occasional free-range pig that eyes hikers with the same interest it reserves for acorns. Maps are sketched in the dust with a stick: “Follow the stone wall, turn left at the granite trough, don’t step on the mycelium.” Mobile signal gives up well before you do.

The most straightforward circuit is the 7 km Camino de la Charca, way-marked by a single green stripe someone painted in 2014 and hasn’t refreshed since. It loops through two private farms; gates must be closed but walkers are expected. Mid-way, a granite basin collects rainwater – look for dragonfly wings catching the light and for the stone seat where shepherds once ate their mid-morning bread and chocolate. Vultures turn overhead like slow black paper planes. The route is flat, stony, and doable in trainers unless it has rained, when the clay clumps to the tread and adds half a kilo to each foot.

A church, a bar and a pool

Back in the village the sight-seeing quota is refreshingly brief. The parish church of the Inmaculada Concepción opens its doors at seven for mass and again at ten for anyone who wants to gawp. Inside, a single nave, a 16th-century side-chapel paid for by wool money, and a Christ statue whose knees are worn smooth from centuries of pats. That is more or less that; the building’s real purpose is as a time-piece – its bell tolls the quarters and saves every household from buying a clock.

Life centres on Bar Don Pepe (no sign, just the smell of coffee drifting across the tiny square). A cortado costs €1.20, a caña of local Tierra de Córdoba wine even less. Mid-morning sees farmers in for a brandy before heading back to the pigs; by six the English contingent arrive, sun-pink and thirsty, to compare walking apps. Cards are tolerated, cash preferred, and if you want food you ask what María has cooked today. Migas – fried breadcrumbs laced with pancetta and grapes – appears without fail on Thursdays. Order it; it tastes like Christmas stuffing and soaks up beer better than any tapa on the coast.

Those rented villas lie on the western edge, down a lane that turns from tarmac to gravel without warning. Most were built in the early 2000s when someone worked out that foreigners would pay for infinity pools overlooking an oak wood. They come with four bedrooms, barbecues big enough for a whole secreto ibérico – the marbled “hidden” cut that melts like butter – and almost no light pollution. On clear August nights the Milky Way feels close enough to snag on the roof tiles; shooting stars are so common you stop pointing them out after the third.

Pork, cheese and things that go ‘pop’ in the woods

Gastronomy here is not a slogan, it is Tuesday lunch. The black-footed pigs outside the village spend their last autumn munching acorns that give the fat its nutty sweetness; by February their hind legs are curing in the cooperative on the road to Hinojosa. You can buy the entire leg for around €90, vacuum-packed and ready for Customs. Smaller souvenirs fit in hand luggage: queso de los Pedroches, a gentle ewe’s milk cheese that even children like; a jar of migas spice mix (mostly paprika and garlic); and, if you arrive the third weekend of November, a paper bag of níscalos bought from a man who sets up a card table outside the bakery. Check the mushrooms for tiny passengers – the price is per kilo whether the beetles stay or go.

The village’s one restaurant, Casa Curro, keeps eccentric hours: lunch 13:30–16:00, dinner only on Friday and Saturday. Starters are skipped; you are brought a plate of chorizo while you read the laminated menu. Secreto ibérico with hand-cut chips is €12; the local red, served chilled, adds €6. Pudding is whatever Curro’s wife has baked – usually a flan that wobbles like a shy jelly. If you finish after four the front door will be locked; leave via the kitchen and try not to trip over the crates of peppers waiting to be roasted.

When to come, when to leave

April and late-September are the sweet spots: 24 °C by day, 12 °C at night, and trails loud only with bees. In July the thermometer kisses 38 °C; sensible Spaniards sleep after lunch and reappear at nine. August fiestas (14–18) import brass bands, foam parties and a rodeo that splits opinion: half the village watches, half boycotts on animal-rights grounds. Book villas early for those dates; prices jump 40 percent and the bakery sells out of croissants by nine.

Winter is quiet, sometimes too quiet. Daytime highs of 12 °C make for crisp walking but pools are unheated and most holiday homes shutter up. The Sunday bus from Córdoba still runs – one at 11:00, returns at 17:00 – yet on more than one journey the driver has been the only passenger. Bring cash for fuel; the village ATM runs dry at weekends and the nearest bank is 20 km away in Pozoblanco.

Leave before you learn everyone’s surname. Three days unclocks the rhythm – up with the baker, out with the boots, back for a beer, repeat – and by the fourth you will be nodding at dogs by name. The real souvenir is auditory: the moment, somewhere between the last star and the first bird, when the bell tower stops tolling and the oaks take over, creaking in a wind you cannot feel. That silence costs nothing extra on the airfare, but it is what brings half of Britain back the following year.