Buenaventura

The church bell strikes seven and the echo has nowhere to hide. Stone houses, barely two storeys high, shoulder the sound until it fades into the oak scrub beyond the last streetlamp. At 410 m above sea level, Buenaventura is neither a lofty eagle’s nest nor a sun-blasted plain—just high enough for the air to feel scrubbed and for Madrid’s glow, 80 km east, to stay politely below the horizon. Drivers who leave the A-5 at kilometre 147 expecting another motorway service town discover instead a single-lane entry road, five minutes of ascent, and silence loud enough to hear tyres crunch on gravel.

A grid for goats, not tourists

No one planned Buenaventura for visitors. The streets form a loose rectangle around Plaza Mayor—really a cobbled rectangle the size of a tennis court—where stone cross, stone bench and stone trough compete for floor space. Houses of ochre limestone have wooden gates wide enough for a mule; many still contain the original hay loft, now converted into a spare room for returning grandchildren. There is no interpretation board, no gift shop, no rack of shiny brochures. The village’s entire interpretive budget appears to have been spent on a single ceramic tile beside the church door, giving the 1776 consecration date in fading blue glaze.

That restraint is the point. British motorists who arrive after lunch on the motorway often stay for dinner precisely because nothing is demanded of them. You can circumnavigate the settlement in twelve minutes, nodding to the same three pensioners twice, and still feel you have missed a side alley or a secret courtyard. The reward comes when twilight flattens the Sierra de San Vicente into a jagged paper cut-out and the first swallow darts under the eaves. Suddenly the lack of signage feels like courtesy rather than neglect.

Walking without waymarks

Maps are useful but not essential. From the last streetlamp a farm track continues uphill past abandoned threshing circles; fifteen minutes later the view opens west towards the Alagón reservoir and the stone roofs below look like scattered dice. The path is part of an old cattle drift—the Cañada Real Leonesa—still legally protected from fencing, so you can simply keep going until the afternoon heat or the growl of your stomach says stop. Spring brings a brief eruption of purple French lavender along the verges; autumn smells of damp holm oak and drifting sheep dung. In July and August you need to start early: by eleven the thermometer kisses 34 °C and shade is a currency worth hoarding.

Birders do better than checklist hunters. Booted eagles ride thermals above the ridge most mornings; listen for their two-note whistle before you scan the sky. A pair of eagle owls nests in the basalt cliffs two kilometres north—locals will point out the spot but only after you have bought a coffee in the bar. Binoculars also help distinguish the village’s single resident griffon vulture from the migratory squadron that sometimes circles overhead, waiting for thermals strong enough to carry them across the motorway towards Extremadura.

One bar, one shop, no cashpoint

The grocery opens at nine and shuts at two. Bread arrives from the regional bakery in Navalmorales; if you want a warm baguette, queue at 9.15 sharp. The owner keeps cheese and chorizo under a glass dome and will slice exactly what you ask for—no more, no less. Card readers exist but the phone line does not always cooperate; a ten-euro note covers breakfast supplies and the Sunday paper from Toledo delivered two days late.

Across the square, Bar Avenida (the name is optimism; the avenida is a single carriageway) serves coffee at €1.20 and a tostada that beats most London brunch plates for £3.50. The house wine comes from Valdepeñas in a one-litre carafe and tastes better after the second glass, especially if the owner’s son is practising flamenco riffs on the battered guitar beside the coffee machine. Kitchen closes at 4 p.m.; on Sundays the shutters drop at 3 p.m. sharp, so don’t plan a late lunch.

For anything fancier you drive twelve kilometres to Navalmorales, where Casa Toro plates up roast kid and partridge stew on weekends. Vegetarians survive on pisto manchego—Spain’s answer to ratatouille—plus a fried egg. Dessert is usually a dish of local honey pooled over curdled sheep’s milk cheese; the combination sounds unlikely until you taste it.

When the village doubles in size

August turns Buenaventura into a pop-up town. Emigrants return from Madrid, Barcelona, even Manchester, reclaiming ancestral houses shuttered since Christmas. The plaza hosts a single marquee, plastic tables under strip lights, and a bar that runs out of chilled lager by midnight. A travelling band plays pasodobles on a portable stage; toddlers chase each other between adults’ legs until exhaustion wins. Fireworks are modest—three rockets at eleven, another three at dawn—yet the echo off stone walls makes them feel monumental. If you want a bed during fiestas you must book the lone holiday cottage months ahead; otherwise the ayuntamento keeps a list of villagers willing to rent a spare room for forty euros a night, bathroom shared with the family tortoise.

Winter shrinks the place again. January fog pools so thick the church tower disappears and conversations acquire the hushed quality of library whispers. Nights drop to –3 °C; the stone houses hold cold like a fridge. Bring slippers and expect the owner to hand you a hot-water bottle along with the key. Snow is rare but frost whitens the ploughland most mornings, turning the landscape into a parchment waiting for ink.

Leaving without rushing

The motorway beckons five kilometres downhill, yet most visitors dawdle. Some walk the ridge once more, others sit in the plaza waiting for the grocery to open so they can buy cheese for the journey. The church bell strikes the hour again; this time you count the chimes and realise the bus back to Madrid won’t wait. Stone, silence and the smell of wild thyme follow you to the car. By the time you merge onto the A-5 the sierra is a smudge in the rear-view mirror, but the quiet lingers longer—proof that a village without monuments can still leave a mark.