Solana de Ávila

The evening light hits the granite slabs first, then slides down the slate roofs until every house in Solana de Ávila glows like a low-watt bulb. At 1,148 m the air thins the colours: ochre becomes rust, rust becomes chestnut, and the whole village looks as though someone has turned the saturation dial half a notch left. This is deliberate. Every lane is angled, every balcony tilted, to grab the sun before it drops behind the Sierra de Gredos. Even the name—solana—means “sunny side”.

A village that measures time by shadows

Winters are a six-month affair. November brings the first proper frost; March can still whiten the stone walls. Daytime highs in February struggle past 7 °C and the wind, channelled up the Tormes valley, feels sharper than the thermometer admits. Snow is patchy—only one day in four sees any—but when it arrives it settles in pockets that turn the single access road into a toboggan run. Chains or 4×4 are sensible between December and the feast of San Blas (3 February), when locals bless the engines of tractors and Seat Ibizas with equal solemnity.

Come May the pastures switch from beige to emerald almost overnight. By then the 100-odd inhabitants have swapped padded jackets for fleeces and moved their social life outdoors. Evenings are spent on kitchen chairs dragged into the lane, swapping commentary on whose potatoes are up, whose cow has wandered onto the football pitch. The pitch itself is a rough pasture 50 m beyond the last house; goalposts are two breeze blocks painted white. Matches are advertised on a scrap of cardboard nailed to the church door—kick-off when the sun clears the ridge.

Walking maps drawn by shepherds

Solana sends out a spider’s web of unsignposted tracks. One trail climbs gently east to the Puerto de Chía (1,650 m) in 6 km; the ridge gives a straight-line view across four provinces. Another dips south through sweet-chestnut coppice to the abandoned hamlet of El Cardoso, its stone granary still standing like a miniature castle. Neither route appears on the Instituto Geográfico Nacional sheets, so most visitors end up asking directions from María at the village shop. She will spread a hunting map across the counter, trace a finger along dried tomato sauce, and add, “Turn right where the lightning split the oak. If you reach the beehives, you’ve gone too far.”

Footwear needs to be serious. After rain the pista turns to axle-deep custard; in July the same surface is fist-sized granite balls that roll underfoot. Allow an hour for what the map swears is three kilometres. Carry water—there are no fountains above the village—and a wind-proof even in August, when Atlantic storms can still drive cloud over the peaks at lunchtime.

The church that closed in 1936 and reopened in a barn

The parish church of San Pedro Apóstol keeps its doors padlocked on weekdays. The key hangs in the mayor’s office, itself open only on Tuesday mornings. Step inside and the temperature drops five degrees; the granite walls are a metre thick, the floor paved with cow-bells cast in 1783 and requisitioned as weights during the Civil War. No baroque excess here—just a single wooden altar painted the colour of ox-blood and a 16th-century font so shallow it was clearly designed for infant immersion rather than polite Anglican sprinkling.

When restoration began in 2009 the roof timbers were found to be ship-masts, probably dragged up from the naval yards at Santander two centuries ago. One beam still carries a lead seal stamped Real Armada. The guide, if you can corral him, will tell you this proves the village once supplied salted beef to the fleet. He will also admit there is no written evidence whatsoever, but the story keeps the children awake during catechism.

Beef, beans and the absence of Michelin stars

There is no restaurant in Solana. The nearest asador is in Becedas, 12 km down a road that corkscrews through pine plantations. Order the chuleton de Ávila (a 1.2 kg rib for two, €42) and it will arrive still spitting on a cast-iron plate. Vegetarians get a plate of judiones del Barco—buttery white beans stewed with saffron and claret—plus a lecture on why the village refuses to install streetlights (they “spoil the milk” according to the owner, who keeps a dairy herd behind the kitchen).

Back in Solana the shop doubles as bakery. Bread arrives frozen from a factory in Ávila city, but the oven is lit on Fridays for hornazo, a meat-stuffed loaf that shepherds carried as edible lunchboxes. Buy one early; by 11 a.m. the crust has cooled and the lard begins to congeal.

When to come, where to sleep, what can go wrong

Spring and early autumn give the best compromise: warm days, cold beer, no school-holiday traffic. May brings orchid explosions along the cattle tracks; October smells of crushed chestnut and wood-smoke. August is hot in the sun (28 °C) but the nights drop to 12 °C—pack a jumper and expect every madrileño with a second home to arrive for the fiesta of San Pedro (last weekend in June). Parking then means abandoning the car on the shoulder of the AV-901 and walking the final kilometre.

Accommodation is limited to Los Castaños, a self-catering flat carved out of an 18th-century hayloft (€85 per night, two-night minimum). The conversion is immaculate—underfloor heating, rain shower, Wi-Fi that actually reaches the bedroom—but there is no mobile signal unless you stand on the balcony and lean north-east. The owners live in Madrid and leave the key in a coded box; instructions are relayed by WhatsApp voice-note while you shiver on the doorstep.

If Los Castaños is booked, the nearest beds are in Piedrahíta (20 min) or the ski resort of La Covatilla (35 min, open December–March). Neither place offers much after 10 p.m. Bring a paperback and a bottle of local verdejo; night-life is the sound of the village water trough overflowing.

Leaving before the sun beats you to it

Solana de Ávila will never feature on a coach tour. There are no souvenir shops, no audio guides, no sunset yoga platforms. What it does offer is a crash course in how Spaniards survive at altitude: orient your house toward the light, keep a cow for insurance, and never trust weather forecasts written more than ten kilometres away. Arrive with realistic expectations—mud, silence, the occasional loose mastiff—and the village will repay you with sharp air, star-drilled skies, and the realisation that “remote” is a relative term when the nearest cappuccino is a 40-minute drive. Pack chains in winter, sunscreen in summer, and always fill the tank in Ávila. After dark the only thing open for miles is the sky.