Barbadillo De Herreros

At 1,100 m above sea level, Barbadillo de Herreros sits high enough for your ears to pop on the final approach. The last 35 km from the motorway wind through pine and oak, the temperature gauge dropping a degree every few minutes. By the time the stone houses appear, Madrid’s summer furnace has faded to something you can breathe.

The village name tells its own story. For four centuries, water-powered forges hammered nails, axe heads and scythes for Castile’s farmers. The iron ore came from neighbouring sierras, the charcoal from the surrounding forest, the water from the Arlanzón river. When cheaper steel arrived from Bilbao in the 1920s, the fires went out for good. Today the only smoke rises from cottage chimneys and the weekend barbecue at the solitary bar.

Stone, timber and a church that keeps watch

There is no postcard plaza or arcaded main square. Instead, lanes climb and fall with the bedrock, narrow enough that neighbours can shake hands across the street. Granite walls are pinned together with timber beams the colour of burnt sugar; balconies sag under geraniums that survive the altitude by sheer stubbornness. The 16th-century church of San Pelayo stands at the top, its tower a useful compass if you lose the path among the pines.

Below the houses, the Arlanzón has been dammed to form a small reservoir. Water levels fluctuate wildly: in late spring the banks are green and the mirror almost reaches the road, by October mud cracks appear and cattle wander across what used to be lake bed. Either version is worth the ten-minute stroll from the last house; herons fish from half-submerged stumps, and the only sound is the click of camera shutters or, more often, the wind.

Walking straight from the door

This is not countryside that demands an early start and a car journey. Marked footpaths leave the village on three sides, ranging from a 45-minute loop through Scots pine to a six-hour crossing of the Demanda ridge that ends in the next valley with a beer in Salas de los Infantes. Spring brings drifts of narcissus under the oaks; autumn is a riot of copper and rust, the leaves so thick they muffle your boots. In winter the same trails become narrow white couloirs where cross-country skiers glide past woodcutters on tractors fitted with snow-chains. The village is never crowded – mid-week in February you might meet no-one – but nor is it empty; locals use the paths to check cattle or gather firewood, and they nod exactly once.

Maps are free from the ayuntamiento, but the routes are easy to follow: look for stone waymarks painted yellow and white. If the mist descends – and it can, fast – the safest retreat is always downhill towards the dam.

Food built for altitude

Castilian cooking at this height is less tapas, more trencherman. Lunch starts at 14:00 and finishes when the fire dies. In Barbadillo itself the choice is limited to one bar open Friday to Sunday out of season; otherwise drive 18 km to Salas for a proper menu. Order the chuletón for two: a rib-eye the size of a steering wheel, salted half an hour before grilling, served rare unless you insist otherwise. Weekend specials include patatas a la importancia – a gentle saffron-garlic stew that won’t frighten timid palates – and cordero lechal, milk-fed lamb roasted in a wood oven until the skin shatters like toffee. Vegetarians get roast piquillo peppers stuffed with goat’s cheese and a drizzle of local honey that tastes of heather and pine sap.

Stock up before you arrive. The village shop closed in 2019; bread appears from a van at 11:00, cheese and morcilla from Burgos can be bought in Salas. If you are self-catering, bring wine – the altitude goes to your head faster than you think.

When to come, and when to stay away

Late May and early June are the sweet spot: daylight until 21:30, wildflowers along the tracks, terraces warm enough for supper outside. September repeats the trick with golden beech added to the mix. Mid-summer is surprisingly bearable – temperatures peak at 26 °C rather than the 38 °C on the plateau – but Spanish school holidays swell the population; book accommodation early and expect a queue for the single village bar. Winter is magnificent if you enjoy solitude and own snow tyres. Roads ice from 16:00 onwards; the council grades the main street at dawn, but side alleys remain glazed. Chains are compulsory on the N-234 approach several days each year, and the Guardia Civil enforce it with on-the-spot fines.

How to get here without grief

Fly to Madrid (2 h from London, Manchester, Edinburgh) or Bilbao (1 h 45 from Bristol). Hire a car – essential – and head north. From Madrid take the A-1 to Aranda de Duero, then the N-234 through pine plantations; total drive 2 h 30. From Bilbao the A-68 to Miranda de Ebro shaves 30 minutes off the journey. Fill the tank and withdraw cash before you leave the motorway; the last services are at Lerma, 60 km south. Phone signal dies in the final valley, so download offline maps. Public transport is fiction: the nearest bus stop is in Salas de los Infantes, 18 km away, with one daily service to Burgos and Soria that leaves at dawn.

A roof for the night

Accommodation is scarce and mostly self-catering. Casa Rural La Fragua sleeps six, has an open fire, English-speaking owner and accepts long weekends outside July–August from €90 a night. Two smaller apartments in restored stone houses open in 2024; enquire through the regional tourism office. There is no hotel, no pool, no spa – the attraction is silence broken only by church bells and the occasional tractor.

Parting shot

Barbadillo de Herreros will not change your life. It offers no Michelin stars, no ancient synagogue repurposed as a cocktail bar, no Instagram swing above a canyon. What it does offer is a place where the day still follows the sun, where the forest starts at the last streetlamp, and where the only decision after dinner is whether to walk under starlight or simply sit and listen to the wood crackle in the grate. If that sounds like enough, come before the rest of Britain realises the forge fires have been cold for a hundred years, and the mountains are still wide open.