Villaluenga del Rosario

The cheese roundabout tells you everything. A three-metre wheel of Payoyo goat cheese cast in bronze greets drivers who’ve already climbed 20 minutes from Grazalema, lungs tight from switchbacks. Villaluenga del Rosario doesn’t do subtle: it announces its obsession before you’ve found a parking space.

At 858 m this is the highest village in Cádiz province and, with 464 residents, the smallest. Houses the colour of fresh yoghurt grip a limestone ridge like limpets. Below them the valley drops away in folds of cork oak and Spanish fir; above, griffon vultures tilt on thermals that smell of warm rosemary. The air is thinner and quieter; phone signal gives up altogether.

A village that never quite levelled itself

The Romans drove their cattle along the Cañada Real that still skirts the settlement, but the Moors left the tighter imprint: alleyways barely shoulder-wide, staircases that double back on themselves, front doors two metres above street level because the hill kept slipping. Calle La Rueda climbs 18% in places; wear shoes with grip or accept the ignominy of clutching a stranger’s windowsill. The reward is the ruined church of El Salvador, roofless since 1755, its cemetery now planted with cypress and wild gladioli. Locals call it “the open-air cathedral”; headstones catch the late sun and glow like parchment.

Down in the Plaza de la Constitución the single bar opens onto a terrace wide enough for four tables. Inside, a ham hock the size of a toddler hangs above the coffee machine. This is the daily parliament: farmers in flat caps argue over the price of kid goats while the barman keeps tally with chalk on the door. Coffee is €1.20, served in glasses that burn your knuckles; tap water arrives without asking because the village still trusts strangers.

What to do when the bells stop ringing

San Miguel’s church tower strikes the hour twice, Andalusian style, but after that the silence is complete. The GR-48 long-distance path passes the village, so walkers set out early to beat the heat. The easiest circuit, PR-A 274, follows the Roman cattle-track south-west for 5 km across open dehesa; no gradients, just stone walls and the occasional free-roaming foal. For something stiffer, the trail to Tajo de los Pájaros gains 300 m in the first kilometre, then skirts a cliff where vultures nest so close you can hear the wind in their primary feathers. A permit is needed for routes inside the Grazalema natural park; pick one up at the visitor hut on the way in – they’re free and usually available the same morning.

Rain is the wildcard. When it arrives the limestone funnels it into sudden waterfalls; El Chorrero behind the cemetery can turn from dry ditch to 20 m spout in an hour. Ask at the cheese museum if it’s flowing – they’ll know, and they’ll lend you a walking pole for the scramble.

Cheese, chorizo and closing times

The Payoyo breed of goat – stockier, with a cashmere undercoat – produces milk so rich the cheese needs only three months to taste like cheddar’s rowdy cousin. The cooperativa on the edge of the village makes four tonnes a week; visitors can peer through portholes at stainless-steel vats and buy wheels still warm from the press. Start with the semicurado mixed-milk version if goat is usually too punchy; the rosemary-rubbed curado keeps for weeks in a rucksack and smells like incense.

Food options are limited and proudly inflexible. Mesón Rural Los Canos, 200 m below the square, fires its wood oven at 19:30 and stops taking names once the grill is full. Chorizo here is 30% goat fat, giving it a sweet, almost floral edge; order it with a plate of fried potatoes and the house red from nearby San José del Valle (€2.50 a glass). Kitchens shut 16:00-20:30; between times you’ll get olives and packet crisps at the bar, nothing more. The village shop unlocks 09:00-14:00, then 17:00-19:30 except Sunday when it doesn’t bother at all. Stock up on water and plasters before you arrive.

When the valley fills with cars

For fifty-one weeks of the year traffic means one tractor and a delivery van. During the last weekend of April the Fiesta del Queso brings 15,000 cheese devotees up the mountain. Temporary marquees line the main street, producers offer razor-thin shavings of 12-month curado, and a goat is raffled live on stage. Accommodation within the village sells out months ahead; afterwards the square is hosed down and normality returns before the church bells strike twelve.

Winter is a different sort of quiet. Night temperatures dip below freezing; pipes burst, the waterfall freezes into a chandelier, and the road from Grazalema is gritted only after the school bus has skidded twice. Come properly equipped or don’t come at all. Spring and late autumn are kinder: warm enough to sit outside at midday, cool enough to walk at four in the afternoon when the light turns the cliffs amber.

Leaving without running downhill

The drive out feels longer because the horizon keeps rising. Turn left at the cheese roundabout, drop two gears, and the valley unwraps itself: first the cork-oak canopy, then the white splash of Grazalema, finally the Atlantic gleam 40 km beyond. Villaluenga shrinks to a single line of roofs pressed against the sky; by the time you reach the lowlands the air feels thick and noisy. Somewhere up there the bar owner is stacking chairs, the vultures are gliding home to roost on El Salvador’s broken arch, and a fresh wheel of cheese is being wrapped in paper for tomorrow’s walkers.