El Castillo de las Guardas

The 08:15 bus from Seville is still empty when it turns off the A-66, but by the time it starts the final 12 km crawl through dehesa the aisle is blocked with string shopping bags and aluminium calf-feeding pails. El Castillo de las Guardas begins at the point where the tarmac gives up and the track keeps going between holm oaks whose trunks are the colour of burnt umber paint straight from the tube.

A village that still answers to the fields

Altitude 350 m means the air arrives five degrees cooler than in the capital, and the evening light turns the stone walls a softer shade of honey than anywhere on the coast. Nothing in the place exceeds three storeys; the highest point is still the castle motte from which raiders once watched the old silver road to Extremadura. What remains is a single stretch of battlement wide enough for two visitors to stand abreast, but the view west over rolling cork forest repays the calf-aching walk up cobbles polished smooth by centuries of hooves.

Below, the streets are chalk-white and barely shoulder-wide. Washing lines zig-zag above them like bunting, and every ground-floor doorway seems to exhale the smell of woodsmoke and oxtail stew. This is not a film set: the village functions as a service centre for scattered farmsteads, so the ironmonger still stocks leather plough straps and the bakery counter opens at 05:30 for men on tractors who need coffee and a half-loaf sandwich before the dew lifts.

Between jamón and giraffes

Two distinct economies coexist here. One is the ancient cycle of acorns, pigs and the black-footed ibérico breed whose hams cure for three winters in the hillside bodegas. The other arrived in 1998 when La Reserva opened its gates on the north-west edge of the municipality. British numberplates begin to appear at the weekend, SUVs stuffed with beach lilos that will never see the sea. A single-track lane, signed “Safari – 4 km”, funnels them towards a former mining estate where zebras wander between the poplars and a giraffe may thrust its head through the car window in search of carrot tops.

The park is undeniably the main draw for families escaping the Costa del Sol, yet it obeys the same timetable as the village. Gates open at 10:00; arrive at 09:55 and you queue for 90 minutes behind coaches from Málaga. Arrive after 15:00 and the asphalt is empty, the animals drowsy, the ticket €5 cheaper. January sees the whole place locked up, so check the website the night before rather than trust glossy brochures picked up in Marbella.

Walking where the mine carts stopped

Behind the petrol station a gravel track follows the old miner’s incline into the forest. The sign reads “Ruta de los Molinos – 6 km circular”, but within ten minutes the hum of the SE-635 disappears and the only sound is the Guadiamar river sliding over slate. Half-buried stone wheels lie in the undergrowth like discarded millstones; their mills once ground mercury ore from the neighbouring hills. Today the path is more likely to yield a glimpse of wild boar or a boot print from last night’s deer poacher. After rain the clay sticks like brick mortar, so trainers beat flip-flops every time.

A shorter option, the Sendero de la Dehesa, starts opposite the football pitch. Marked simply “Castaño – 45 min”, it climbs gently through cork plantation where the trunks are still scarred from last year’s harvest. Mid-March brings a haze of sapphire hepatica under the trees; late October delivers fungi that locals collect at dawn and sell from the boots of battered Renaults outside Bar Cristian. If you cannot distinguish níscalo from death cap, order the seta scramble at El Recreo instead – the chef sources from the same woods but survives to serve it.

Food that tastes of labour

Menus here do not bother with foam or tweezers. Order the cocido in midwinter and you receive a clay bowl the size of a cricket ball, piled with chickpeas, morcilla and scraps of jamón bone that have given up every ounce of flavour. The orange-glazed pork at El Piñonate tastes like British crackling brushed with marmalade, while their dessert piñonate – layers of honey-soaked pastry – could pass for a Spanish sticky toffee pudding if someone would only add custard.

Vegetarians face limited choice. Most bars will assemble a revuelto de setas (mushroom scramble) or patatas a lo pobre (potatoes slow-fried with green pepper), but expect quizzical looks and a supplementary plate of cheese. Prices remain stubbornly local: a three-course menú del día hovers around €12, wine included, and coffee afterwards costs the same €1.20 whether you stand at the counter or occupy the terrace until sunset.

When the calendar, not the clock, decides

Time your visit for the Romería in mid-May and the village triples in size. Horseboxes line the main street, their occupants braided with ribbons, while families haul portable barbecues towards the ermita three kilometres west. Tourists are welcome but there are no grandstands: you walk behind the carts or you watch from a ditch, and polite applause matters more than selfies. August fiestas are louder, wetter – the fire brigade hoses down the plaza at midnight so teenagers can dance in what temporarily becomes the region’s smallest open-air club – and accommodation within 20 km books up months ahead.

Come in February and you may have the castle view to yourself, but evenings drop to 4 °C and the only open restaurant rotates according to a rota pinned in the town hall. November brings mushroom fairs, March brings almond blossom, and both months guarantee empty paths, low prices and the risk of a sudden storm racing up from the Atlantic.

Leaving before the owl clocks on

Last bus back to Seville departs at 17:45; miss it and the nightly rural service reaches the capital after 21:00, by which time every ham sandwich in the Santa Justa station has sold out. Drivers should note that the nearest cash machine is 12 km away in El Madroño – the village bank closed in 2019 – and petrol pumps lock for siesta between 14:00 and 17:00. Fill up, stock up, then climb the castle mound one final time. As the sun slips behind the Sierra de Aracena the forest turns the colour of a freshly opened box of watercolours, and the only movement is a black-shouldered kite quartering the cork oaks before the night shift begins.