Blasconuño de Matacabras

The grain silo appears first, a concrete finger on the horizon, then the bell tower of San Martín rises beside it like an afterthought. From the driver's seat on the N-501, Blasconuno de Matacabras announces itself with all the fanfare of a shrug. Fourteen souls live here, though the electoral roll swells to forty-three when the grandchildren come back for August. At 786 metres above sea level, the village sits high enough for the air to carry a thin snap that Londoners will recognise from the North Downs in February.

A Name That Makes Farmers Laugh

Say "Matacabras" to anyone from Ávila and they'll grin. Goat-killer. The etymology dissolves into pub-story territory—some swear it refers to nineteenth-century livestock raids, others claim wolves once dropped carcasses here—but the name sticks because it fits. This is hard-country Castile, where the pasture gives up early and the wind combs the wheat into silver waves. The hamlet perches on the edge of La Moraña, a plateau so flat that locals claim you can watch your dog run away for three days. They also claim the pub in Fontiveros serves coffee that doubles as engine degreaser, so judgment is advised.

Stone, Adobe and the Art of Staying Put

Park where the tarmac crumbles—there are no yellow lines, no metres, no traffic wardens—and walk. The streets are the width of a tractor axle; cobbles have been pressed smooth by generations of wheat wagons. Houses the colour of dry biscuits lean inward, their timber doors painted the same ox-blood red that the regional council bulk-bought in 1978. A single electrical cable loops from eave to eave like a clothesline, carrying the entire grid. Someone has wired a nest of storks into the circuit; the birds return each March and the village tolerates the intermittent blackout because, as the mayor-shopkeeper-farmer (population: one) explains, they eat vipers.

The church of San Martín keeps its own time. The masonry is sixteenth-century farm labour: chunks of quartz and feldspar held together by stubbornness. Inside, the air smells of candle smoke and damp grain sacks; frescoes have peeled back to reveal earlier sketches of saints with club-footed sheep. The bell still rings for Mass at ten every Sunday, though the priest drives in from Piedrahíta and some weeks forgets the host. Locals simply carry on, exchanging recipes in the nave until someone remembers to lock up.

Walking the Chessboard

Leave the houses behind and the plateau opens like a chessboard. The GR-84 long-distance path skirts the village, but most visitors simply follow the farm tracks that radiate outward like spokes. Each is exactly wide enough for a combine harvester, which means you can walk side-by-side and still feel alone. In late April the wheat is ankle-high and lime-green; by July it will be knee-high and the colour of pound coins. There is no shade—bring a hat, factor fifty, and more water than you think necessary because the only fountain is back in the square and it tastes faintly of iron.

Birders should lower their expectations. Crested larks zip ahead like paper planes, and the occasional great bustard lifts from stubble with the grace of a departing cargo plane. Otherwise the soundtrack is wind and, if you pause, the low hum of tractors three fields away. Photography works better at either end of the day: sunrise turns the straw rose-gold, while dusk lays a violet filter across the soil so that even rusted farm machinery looks melancholy and important.

The Calendar That Nobody Prints

There is no tourist office, so dates travel by word of mouth. The fiesta proper happens around 11 November, the feast of San Martín, but the village is cold then and most celebrants have migrated to Arévalo for work. The real party is the weekend closest to 15 August. Returning families string bulbs between balconies, someone borrows a sound system from the fire brigade in Sanchidrián, and the square becomes an open-air kitchen. Cochinillo (suckling pig) arrives in crates from a supplier who doubles as the local undertaker; wine comes in five-litre plastic jugs that once held weedkiller—rinse thoroughly. Visitors are welcome but not announced: if you turn up with a bag of ice and a willingness to wash plates, you are family. Dancing starts at midnight and ends when the generator runs out of diesel, usually around the time the storks begin their morning shift.

Where to Sleep, Eat and Fill the Tank

Blasconuno has no hotel, no casa rural, no supermarket, no bar. The nearest beds are in Fontiveros (18 km) or Arévalo (35 km), both of which offer serviceable three-star conversions of former convents. Expect to pay €65–€85 for a double, including breakfast that features churros the diameter of steering wheels. If you insist on staying within earshot of the church bell, ask at the house with the green gate opposite the silo; the owners sometimes rent a spare room to cyclists for €30 cash, breakfast negotiable. They will apologise for the Wi-Fi—there isn't any—and then feed you eggs whose yolks are the colour of a Madrid sunset.

For supplies, fill the tank in Arévalo; the last petrol pump in Fontiveros closed when the owner retired to Salamanca. Bring picnic ingredients: local cheese is a sheep's-milk queso de oveja that tastes of thyme and concrete, sold from a fridge in a garage on the AU-11. Eat it with the crusty pan de pueblo from Arévalo's Saturday market and a tomato sharp enough to make your gums squeak. Beer is whatever the regional distributor remembered to drop off; if you find bottles of Estrella de León, buy them—it was discontinued in 2019 and the villagers have been hoarding.

When to Cut Your Losses

Come in May if you want green and wildflowers, but pack a fleece: night temperatures can dip to 6 °C. July and August deliver cloudless skies and 32 °C by noon; the wheat dust gets into every crevice and you will find straw in your pockets come December. October brings gold stubble and migrating cranes overhead, yet the short days mean you are driving back to your accommodation in darkness on roads patrolled by wild boar. Winter is for locals only: snow drifts across the plain, the village well freezes, and the single plough belongs to a farmer who prioritises his own track.

Leave time to miss the place. After an hour you will have walked every street twice; after two you will know which house keeps the ginger cat that follows walkers to the village limits. Stay for sunset and the plateau becomes a sea of shadow; the silo and the bell tower merge into one dark shape against an orange sky, and the fourteen inhabitants switch on their kitchen lights in sequence like a slow-motion Christmas tree. Then drive away. The road back to the N-501 is straight enough to feel as if you are rewinding the journey, and the rear-view mirror shows Blasconuno shrinking to a postage stamp. By the time you reach Arévalo you will have dust on your shoes and a sudden craving for that sharp tomato. Whether you ever return is irrelevant; the village has already done its job, which is to remind you how much space silence can occupy.