Navarredonda de Gredos

At 1,523 m the evening air carries a nip you’d expect in the Pennines, not an hour and a half west of Madrid. Navarredonda de Gredos sits on a granite shelf punched into the Sierra’s northern flank; stone houses with timber balconies huddle round a seventeenth-century church as if waiting for weather that never quite softens. The village clock strikes nine and someone lights a log fire—perfectly normal in August.

A village that faces the peaks, not the past

The main street takes fifteen minutes to walk end-to-end, yet every doorway tells of an economy that once lived off goats and pine resin rather than tourism. Old stables now serve as cafés; the bakery has become a small grocer that shuts from two until five and all day Sunday. There is no ATM, no boutique, no souvenir shop—just the smell of resin drifting down from the forests and, at dawn, the clatter of hooves as local riders set off to check cattle grazing above the treeline.

Outsiders arrive for one reason: the mountains fill the windscreen the moment you crest the Puerto de Villatoro. Below, the Alberche valley unrolls like a tawny carpet; above, the Circo de Gredos wall rises to Pico Almanzor, the Central System’s 2,592 m roof. Navarredonda is the last place with petrol and a paved road before the regional park begins, which explains why Spanish school buses, German campervans and British walking groups all squeeze into a car park designed for donkeys.

Walking tracks that start at the bakery

Leave the village southwards and a stony lane climbs through reforested Scots pine. Within twenty minutes you’re alone except for the odd forester’s pick-up. The signed route to the Laguna Grande starts 10 km further up at La Plataforma, but plenty of softer half-day circuits begin straight from the church door. Follow the track past the ruined cortijo, fork left at the firebreak and you reach the Garganta de Navarredonda—a series of polished rock pools cold enough to numb feet in minutes. On weekdays you might share them with a family from Salamanca; at weekends Spanish teenagers arrive with speakers and inflatable unicorns, so timing matters.

Maps in the tobacconist are years out of print. Download the free IGN 1:25,000 sheet before leaving home, or ask at the riding centre on the road to Hoyos del Espino—Zara and her team keep printed tracks and will lend a GPS for a ten-euro deposit. They also run half-day hacks to the pine meadows at 1,800 m; July departures are at 07:00 so horses and riders finish before the sun becomes vicious. Even then you’ll need a fleece: altitude strips twenty degrees off the Madrid forecast.

Where to sleep, eat and remember the altitude

The Parador de Gredos, a stone hunting lodge built for Alfonso XIII in 1928, looms on the ridge above the village. Room rates drop under €150 if you avoid Easter and the 1 May motorway exodus from Madrid. British visitors tend to treat it as an expensive coffee stop, but the set lunch—judías del Barco beans, charcoal-grilled Ávila beef, half-bottle of local tempranillo—comes in at €29 and saves driving elsewhere after a long walk. Kitchen closes at 22:30 sharp; turn up at 22:25 and you’ll be offered bread and apology.

Down in the village, Posada La Casa de Arriba keeps six attic rooms with sloping ceilings and patchwork quilts. Owner Marisol lights the wood-stove at dusk and brings homemade sponge cake at tea-time, a ritual that keeps repeat bookings from geography teachers who bring A-level groups to study glacial valleys. Beds have electric blankets; ignore them and you’ll wake to 12 °C indoors. Breakfast is thick hot chocolate and churros—non-negotiable, apparently.

The only other option is the municipal albergue, spotless but dorm-only; bring a sleeping bag and expect lights-out at 23:00 after the hospitalero’s lecture on snoring etiquette.

Seasons that swap the rules

May turns the meadows violet with wild thyme and the village hosts its tiny cheese fair: one marquee, three producers, free toothpicks. By July the plain below is frying at 38 °C yet nights here can drop to 3 °C; pack a down jacket and you’ll dine outside while Madrileños swelter. September brings scarlet rowan berries and the first threat of snow on the pass. October is golden, empty and the best month for serious walking—unless a southeasterly drags Atlantic weather over the crest, in which case clouds cannon up the valley and visibility drops to twenty metres in minutes.

Winter is serious. The road to La Plataforma is cleared only as far as the barrier; beyond that you need chains or snowshoes. Spanish families arrive with sledges bought at garage forecourts and discover that minus fifteen feels colder than the Pyrenees. Mountain rescue posts phone numbers on every gatepost; ignore them and you’ll meet Guardia Civil helicopters trained in the Alps. Still, on windless February mornings the Circo floats in alpenglow and you have the entire massif to yourself—provided you started walking at dawn and carry more than a packet of Quavers.

The practical stuff nobody prints

A car is non-negotiable. The nearest railway station is Ávila, 60 km east; buses reach Hoyos del Espino, 10 km downhill, but the connecting taxi operates only if you book the previous day and costs €25. Fill the tank in Ávila—village fuel is pumped by the grocer on request and adds ten cents a litre for the inconvenience.

Cash matters. The Posada and the Parador take cards; the grocer, the riding centre and the bar that serves breakfast do not. There is no ATM; the closest is in El Barco de Ávila, 25 km away down a gorge road that feels like Dartmoor on steroids.

Phone signal is patchy. Movistar works on the main square; Vodafone requires a stroll to the cemetery ridge where reception is perfect but the ambience less so.

Last light on granite

Drive up to the Puerto de Villatoro just before dusk. The village falls away, pine trunks glow copper and the peaks turn the colour of biscuit dunked in tea. Swifts cut arcs across the sky; somewhere a goat bell clinks. You’ll remember the moment later, stuck on the M40 ring-road, Madrid heat shimmering off the tarmac, wishing you’d bought that extra blanket after all.