Casas del Puerto

The morning mist clings to the valley floor like cotton wool, and from the village edge you can watch it dissolve as the sun hauls itself over the Sierra de Gredos. At this height—1,174 metres above sea level—the air thins enough to make every breath taste clean, almost sharp. Casas del Puerto doesn’t announce itself with billboards or souvenir stalls; the only greeting is the soft clank of a distant cowbell and the smell of pine resin warming on the breeze.

This is not a place that entertains. It accommodates. Stone houses with timber balconies huddle along a single winding lane, their roofs pitched steeply for the snow that will arrive by December and stay until March. Many are second homes now, locked tight through winter, but enough remain occupied year-round to keep the bar open and the church bell ringing on Sundays. The permanent population hovers around eighty souls, a figure that can double at Christmas when grandchildren from Madrid or Valladolid drive up the AV-941 and wonder why the phone signal vanishes halfway.

Stone, Snow and Silence

The architecture here is practical rather than pretty. Walls are two feet thick, windows are small, and chimneys are wide—design choices that made sense long before central heating. Wander twenty paces beyond the last house and the village simply stops; pasture gives way to scrub oak and then to pine forest. In autumn the dehesa glows copper and rust, while the distant bark of stag on the rut rolls up from the valleys like thunder trapped in a biscuit tin. Locals claim you can set your calendar by the first berrea, usually the last weekend in September, when the bar uncorks last year’s wine and debates which neighbour spotted the first red hind.

Winter arrives early and leaves late. The road from Barco de Ávila, 18 kilometres away, is kept clear but ice lingers in the shadows until noon. Chains are sensible from November onwards; without them you may spend the night in the car while temperatures drop to minus eight. Summer, by contrast, is a revelation: daylight until ten, night skies so dark that Orion seems close enough to snag on a rooftop, and midday heat that rarely tops twenty-eight degrees thanks to the altitude. Spring is brief, wet and fragrant with wild thyme; autumn is the photographers’ season, when every track leads to a composition of russet leaves and quartz-grey peaks.

Tracks That Ask Questions

There are no ticket booths, no colour-coded waymarks, no gift shop at the trailhead. What exists is a lattice of livestock paths that double as walking routes—some wide enough for a 4×4, others narrowing to a ribbon of grit between broom and boulder. The most straightforward outing follows the Arroyo del Puerto upstream for forty minutes to a bowl of polished granite where meltwater tumbles into a pool the size of a tennis court. The water is snow-cold even in July; dip a toe if you must, but expect numbness within seconds.

For something stiffer, continue another hour to the Puerto de Chía, a 1,540-metre saddle where the view opens west towards the highest Gredos summits, their glinting snowfields visible until late June. The gradient is moderate but relentless; allow three hours return and carry more water than you think necessary—the only tap is back in the village square. Maps are downloadable from the regional government site, but phone GPS is unreliable once the forest closes in. Ask in the bar: the owner, Jesús, keeps a dog-eared topographic sheet behind the coffee machine and will trace a finger along the route while recounting how his uncle once carried a washing machine up the same path on mule-back.

What You’ll Eat and What You’ll Pay

The village has one establishment that functions as bar, shop and informal information point. Coffee costs €1.20, a caña of draught beer €1.50, and the cheese tostada comes slathered with local goat’s cheese that has never seen a fridge. Opening hours shrink in winter—expect 10:00–14:00 and 17:00–20:00—but stretch again in summer when weekend visitors from Madrid swell the bar stools. There is no restaurant; if you want a three-course meal you drive to Barco de Ávila where Casa Armando grills chuletón de Ávila at €32 a kilo, enough for two hungry walkers.

Self-caterers should stock up before the climb. The tiny fridge in the bar holds milk, eggs and cured pork; for anything fancier (fresh fish, salad that isn’t iceberg) stop at the Mercadona in Ávila city, 75 minutes away. What the village does produce is honey: dense, dark chestnut honey sold in 500-gram jars for €6. The beekeeper brings them down on Saturday mornings; when they’re gone, they’re gone until next month.

Where to Sleep (and Why You Might Not)

Accommodation is limited to three village houses converted into holiday lets, booked almost exclusively by word-of-mouth or through the regional tourism board’s clunky website. Expect stone floors, beams blackened by centuries of woodsmoke, and Wi-Fi that copes with emails but buckles under Netflix. Prices hover around €90 per night for a two-bedroom house, minimum two nights. Heating is pellet-fired; instructions are in Spanish but the owner, Marisol, lives two doors down and will demonstrate if you smile nicely.

Camping is technically permitted in the regional park beyond the village boundary, but flat ground is scarce and the wind can whip across the puerto at 40 kilometres per hour. Wild campers have woken to find their tent dusted with snow in late May; pack a four-season bag or book the house.

The Honest Verdict

Casas del Puerto will not suit everyone. If you measure holiday success by tick-box attractions, you will leave within an hour. The nearest museum is 40 kilometres away, the nearest beach 200, and the nightlife consists of a single streetlamp and whatever playlist the bar feels like playing. What the village offers instead is altitude-bred clarity: the chance to walk until your legs ache, eat simply, and fall asleep to absolute quiet broken only by the occasional grunt of wild boar rooting below the garden wall. Come with a full tank, a half-read book and no itinerary. Leave before the first snow if you’re driving a low-slung hatchback; stay through the winter if you crave silence thick enough to touch.