Gilbuena

The bells stop at eleven. After that, Gilbuena belongs to the dogs, the wind and whoever is still awake on the granite bench outside Casa Juan. From that bench you can see the whole province of Ávila tilt southwards: a brown-green swell of dehesa oak sweeping towards the distant white streak of the Gredos peaks, the Tormes valley glinting like a dropped coin. The village sits at 1,062 m, high enough for your ears to pop on the last hair-pin of the AV-522 and for night temperatures to fall below freezing even when Madrid, 110 km east, is still pretending it’s summer.

Stone, Slate and the Art of Staying Put

Forty-five residents are registered, nearer twenty in winter. Houses are mortared with the same grey granite they stand on; walls are half a metre thick, windows the size of post-boxes, roofs a jigsaw of slate that clatters like snare drum when hail comes. Nothing is “restored” in the twee sense—just kept alive. A farmer will point out the family barn his grandfather raised in 1923, then show you the WhatsApp group where neighbours share wolf sightings and surplus peppers. The church is locked unless it’s Sunday, but the key hangs on a nail inside the sacristy door; let yourself in, leave a euro for the light, and you’ll find frescoes flaking like old postage stamps and a sixteenth-century font still used for the occasional itinerant baptism.

There is no shop. The last one closed when its proprietor, Doña Feli, died in 2018 at ninety-four. If you arrive late, hungry and hoping for a pint of milk, you’ll drive another 25 km to Sanchidrián’s Mercadona. Better idea: e-mail your casa rural host a shopping list the day before. Most will fill the fridge for cost plus ten euros—cheaper than the time you’ll spend hunting chorizo in the dark.

Walking Without Way-Markers

Gilbuena is a footnote on the Cañada Real Leonesa, the medieval drove-road that once funnelled Merino sheep from León to winter pasture in Extremadura. The track is sunk a metre deep by centuries of hooves; you can follow it west for three hours to the abandoned village of Navalmoral, or east towards the cherry orchards of Aliseda. Neither direction is sign-posted—just keep the Sierra de la Paramera on your left and the sky on top. Spring brings a carpet of wild narcissi; October smells of wet chestnut and wood-smoke. Boots are advisable after rain: clay and cattle turns the path into something resembling chocolate mousse.

Shorter loops start at the fountain by the cemetery. One hour south through oak scrub brings you to the stone hut of Majada del Cura, where goatherds still make cheese over a juniper fire. They’ll sell you a half-kilo of fresh curd for five euros if you ask politely and bring your own Tupperware. Mobile signal dies two minutes out of the village—download an offline map or, radical notion, take a paper one. The Guardia Civil mountain-rescue team is based forty minutes away; they prefer not to spend evenings looking for tourists who relied on Apple Maps.

Winter Rules

From December to March the AV-522 is gritted but never guaranteed. A week of Atlantic storms can dump thirty centimetres of wet snow; the council tractor clears a single lane, so meeting a timber lorry becomes a game of reverse chicken. Chains or all-season tyres are sensible; without them you may spend the night in the lay-by above Puerto de Chía listening to the engine block cool. On the plus side, the sky performs. At 1,000 m the air is thin and dry; Orion looks close enough to snag on a roof-rack. Several British astronomy clubs now book the entire casa rural El Pinar for February weekends, bringing red-light torches and crates of Rioja to keep the lenses dew-free.

Summer is gentler up here. While the plains of Ávila bake at 38 °C, Gilbuena tops out at twenty-nine, falling to fourteen after midnight. August fiestas swell the population to perhaps two hundred. A marquee goes up in the plaza, a Basque covers half a beef rib in rock salt and roasts it for six hours, and someone’s uncle wheels out a sound system last heard at a 1992 wedding. Fireworks echo off the granite for twenty minutes; then the village empties again, leaving only crushed lager cans and the smell of gunpowder.

What to Eat and Where to Pretend You’re Not Lost

There is one bar, Casa Juan, open Thursday to Sunday in winter, every day in July and August. Inside: three tables, a ham leg older than TikTok, and Juan’s mother peeling potatoes while watching Cuéntame. The menu is written on a paper napkin: judiones del Barco (butter-bean stew), chuletón de Ávila for two, ponche segoviano to finish. Vegetarians get a grilled piquillo-pepper omelette and sincere commiserations. Expect to pay €18–22 a head including house wine that arrives in a glass bottle with no label and tastes better than it should. Kids’ options exist—ask for “tostada mixta” and Juan will produce a ham-and-cheese toastie cut into triangles.

If the bar is closed, the nearest proper restaurant is in Puerto Castilla, 12 km back towards the N-502. Mesón de la Sierra does roast suckling lamb at weekends; book before you leave home or you’ll eat crisps in the car.

Beds and Bills

Accommodation is entirely self-catering casas rurales, four in total sleeping six to ten. Prices hover around €90 a night for the whole house in low season, €160 in August. Heating is by pellet stove; you’ll be shown how to feed it on arrival and charged €5 a bag. Bring slippers—stone floors at dawn are unforgiving. Two properties accept dogs for a €20 supplement, handy because there is no kennel and the local vet only visits on Thursdays.

Check-out is 11 a.m. sharp; the cleaner drives in from Sotillo and has three other villages to cover. She will also inspect the bin separation—glass, organic, burnable—because the council only collects once a week and mistakes attract wasps.

Last Orders

Gilbuena will not change your life. It offers no souvenir shop, no interpretive centre, no sunrise yoga. What it does offer is altitude: a place to rise above the central Spanish plain literally and metaphorically, where the only traffic jam is caused by sheep and the loudest noise is your own pulse after a stiff climb. Come with groceries, a full tank and realistic expectations. Leave before the first snow unless you own chains, and remember to switch off the courtyard light—astronomers 1,000 metres below are trying to watch the stars.