Pepino

The 450-metre contour line on the map does Pepino few favours. From Madrid, the village sits at roughly the same altitude as Buxton, yet the surrounding Sierra de San Vicente behaves more like the Yorkshire Dales dropped into central Spain: same upland grain, different colour palette. Olive groves replace limestone walls, holm oaks stand in for dry-stone barns, and the only thing that reliably cuts through the afternoon hush is the church bell that still divides the day into thirds rather than hours.

A village that refuses to hurry

Pepino’s 3,000 souls have watched the A-5 motorway creep closer for decades, but the bypass remains mercifully distant. What arrives instead is a trickle of drivers who leave the expressway at Oropesa, follow the CM-4000 past sun-baked cereal fields, then swing onto the TO-7143 for the final 12 km of empty tarmac. The first houses appear almost apologetically, their whitewash peeling in rectangular patches that reveal earlier shades of ochre and terracotta. Park anywhere along the main street; meters don’t exist and the traffic warden is whoever happens to be leaning against the bakery doorway.

Altitude matters here. Mornings can be four degrees cooler than in Toledo, enough to turn a July stroll into something bearable. By contrast, January often brings a sharp, cloudless cold that brittles the grass and sends wood-smoke curling from chimney pots. Snow is rare but not unheard of; when it arrives, the single gritter keeps the road to the health centre open and leaves the rest to melt when it chooses. If you’re coming in winter, pack the same layers you’d take to the Peak District: the thermometer may read 10 °C, but the wind across the plains feels colder.

Stone, timber and the smell of cumin

The parish church dominates the skyline without trying. Built in stages between the 16th and 19th centuries, it squats at the top of a gentle rise so that every lane eventually tilts towards its mismatched tower. Step inside and the temperature drops another three degrees; the interior smells of candle wax, old paper and the faint metallic tang of incense that never quite disperses. Restoration work in 2018 revealed a fragment of Mudéjar brickwork behind the main altar, proof that even this solid Castilian village once borrowed craftsmen from further south.

Below the tower, the streets follow the slope in short, irregular flights. Doors are tall enough for mules, not SUVs, and the ironwork balconies were designed for drying hams rather than displaying geraniums. Granite blocks jut out at ankle height—medieval wheel-stops that now trip tourists who stare upwards. Halfway down Calle de la Cruz, a 1920s pharmacy still displays ceramic jars labelled “Hierro” and “Quinina”; the owner will sell you a cola cao and tell you, without prompting, that the shop survived both Civil War requisitions and the 2008 crash because “people always need cough mixture and someone to moan at.”

Lunch at eleven, siesta at three

Food arrives early. By 11:30 the bar on Plaza Mayor has already ladled out half its cocido stockpot to farm workers who treat mid-morning stew as a constitutional right. Order the menú del día—€12 mid-week, €15 at weekends—and you get soup thick enough to stand a spoon in, followed by migas (fried breadcrumbs threaded with garlic and pancetta) or, in season, partridge braised with bay and cloves. Vegetarians can ask for “setas a la plancha,” but be warned: the mushrooms are cooked on the same iron plate as the chorizo, and nobody sees the contradiction.

The plaza itself measures barely 40 metres across. One side is anchored by the town hall, a 1950s brick box whose clock runs six minutes fast all year because the caretaker likes to close early. Opposite, the bakery sells a sweet brioche called “pan de Pepino” that tastes of aniseed and keeps for a week—handy if you’re walking and don’t mind crumbs in your rucksack. Buy one at 13:00 and it will still be soft at supper; try the same after 14:00 and you’ll meet the crust that defeated local dentures for three generations.

Tracks that remember hooves

Seven signed footpaths radiate from the village, ranging from the 45-minute “Ruta de las Encinas” to the 14-km circuit that climbs to the Puerto de la Serrana at 870 m. None requires technical gear, but the limestone grit underfoot turns slick after rain; approach shoes with a bit of tread are wiser than pristine white trainers. Spring brings a brief, almost indecent flush of poppies and wild marjoram; by late June the palette has narrowed to grey-green holm oak and the metallic blue of thistles. Shade is negotiable—carry at least a litre of water per person, and don’t trust the seasonal streams until October.

Cyclists find the same tracks rideable if you’re content with gravel and the occasional gate. A gentle 25-km loop south to Navahermosa and back uses the old livestock drove-road; allow two hours and a second breakfast stop in the latter village, where the café opens at 07:00 because the bus to Toledo leaves at 07:15 and the owner believes in civic duty.

When the village re-opens its notebooks

Festivities are mercifully short. The fiesta patronal (third weekend of July) compresses most noise into 48 hours: Saturday night rock cover band, Sunday morning procession, Monday lunchtime paella cooked in a pan the size of a satellite dish. Visitors are welcome but not announced; if you want to join the human chain that carries the saint’s platform, just step forward and someone will hand you a rope. Fireworks finish by 01:00—this is Castile, not Valencia—and Tuesday morning the square is swept clean before the sun clears the church roof.

December is quieter. The nativity scene in the sacristy includes a 19th-century porcelain doll that someone once mistook for the Christ child and still gets pride of place. On 28 December (Spain’s equivalent of April Fool’s) teenagers wander the streets selling “fool’s newspapers” that mock the mayor’s broadband promises and the priest’s penchant for lengthy sermons. Buy a copy for €1; the jokes lose something in translation but the proceeds fund the summer concert.

Getting there, staying over, getting out

Madrid-Barajas is 120 km east. Hire a car, aim for the A-5, exit at Talavera de la Reina and follow the CM-515 north-west until Pepino appears on the brown signpost. Public transport exists in theory—one bus each way on weekdays, none at weekends—but the service is designed for pensioners with medical appointments, not travellers with luggage. If you must rely on wheels other than your own, base yourself in Talavera (25 min drive) and negotiate a taxi; €35 each way is the going rate, more after 22:00.

Accommodation within the village currently amounts to a single Airbnb flat above the former telephone exchange. It has two bedrooms, terracotta floors thick enough to muffle the church bells, and a roof terrace that catches the evening sun long after the streets have cooled. At €75 a night it is clean, honest and booked most weekends by Spanish families visiting grandparents. Alternative beds are in Oropesa (15 km), where the parador occupies a 16th-century castle and charges €140 for the privilege of sleeping beneath tapestries. Camping is tolerated beside the municipal pool in July and August—ask at the town hall, pay €5, and don’t expect showers hotter than 25 °C.

Leave before 11:00 on Sunday and you will meet no traffic until the motorway. Stay for lunch and you will also leave with a plastic bag of homemade chorizo pressed on you by the bar owner who insists Britain needs decent embutidos. Both exits feel correct; Pepino is that sort of place—happy to see arrivals, unoffended by early departures, and already half-asleep again before the dust settles.