Puebla de Sanabria

The guard at the fifteenth-century castle hands over the key with a warning: "Mind your head on the murder hole." It's not everyday vocabulary, even in Spain, but then Puebla de Sanabria isn't an everyday sort of place. At 961 metres above sea level, this stone-built town of 1,500 souls sits high enough to make you notice the thinner air, yet low enough to feel the first nip of Atlantic weather rolling in from Galicia, only 40 minutes west.

A Town that Forgot to Modernise its Streets

Puebla's planners stopped widening lanes sometime around 1492. What remains is a grid of alleyways barely two arm-spans across, paved with watermelon-sized cobbles that have polished themselves glass-smooth over five centuries. Delivery vans fold in their mirrors; locals navigate by memory. The surprise is that nobody has levelled anything. Instead, residents repaint wooden balconies geranium-red, rehang the wrought-iron signs and get on with life. The effect is cinematic until you realise the extras are real: pensioners gossip under the soportales of Plaza Mayor, teenagers weave home on bicycles after midnight, and the loudest sound at 2 p.m. is a distant accordion leaking from a bar that refuses to close for siesta.

Start at the castle because everyone else does, but arrive before 11 a.m. when the coach parties from Oporto spill out. The Torre del Homenaje climbs 20 metres in tight spiral stairs; the reward is a 360-degree roof terrace where you can spot the lake glinting between pine ridges to the north-east. Inside, the provincial library has been inserted with admirable restraint—computer terminals share space with a 1490s well. Entry is €3; children under twelve get in free and are immediately intoxicated by battlement ladders.

Stone, Wood and the Occasional Smell of Chestnuts

From the fortress, Calle del Castillo tumbles downhill past mansions whose coats of arms still bear the original paint. Knockers are shaped like lions, balconies like birdcages. Halfway down, the Iglesia de Nuestra Señora del Azogue appears almost shyly, its Romanesque doorway shoulder-high because the street has risen around it. The interior smells of candle wax and damp granite; the sixteenth-century altarpiece glows dimly until your eyes adjust. Opening hours are glued to the door on a scrap of paper—usually Mass at 19:00 and a brief window around 10:30. Miss it and you've missed it.

Keep descending and you hit the Arco de la Villa, the one surviving gate in walls that once enclosed barely four hectares. Beyond lies the new town—nineteenth-century, practically futuristic by comparison—where supermarkets and the Friday market supply firewood, wellingtons and the region's bitter broccoli. Turn back under the arch for a coffee at Cafetería Cristina; they still serve café con leche in glass tumblers and will give you change for the parking meter without being asked.

The Lake that Isn't in the Town (But Everyone Thinks Is)

Lake Sanabria is the principal reason visitors stay overnight, yet it lies a 15-minute drive north on the ZA-104, a switch-back road that regularly deposits cyclists into the verge. No bus covers the route on Sundays and taxis from the rank charge a fixed €25 each way—worth knowing before you imagine a romantic lakeside stroll from your hotel door. Once there, the glacial bowl opens into Spain's largest natural lake: 3.5 km long, 368 hectares, water so clear you can count the pebbles at ten metres. Two sandy beaches (Custa Llago and Tejedelo) have Blue Flag status, but the average July temperature is 19°C; only children and the stubborn stay in longer than twenty minutes. Kayaks rent for €12 an hour; bring shoes you don't mind soaking because entries are stony.

Outside high summer the place empties. October brings beech woods the colour of burnt toffee, and if you walk only one path, make it the five-kilometre lakeside circuit that starts at the visitor centre and finishes at the picnic clearing where Spanish families produce entire jamón legs from rucksacks. Winter can be savage: locals tell of 2012 when the surface froze thick enough for ice hockey, and even in April an easterly wind off the Sierra de la Culebra will have you zipped into a fleece at midday.

Beef that Tastes like Sunday Lunch, Wine that Doesn't Give a Hangover

Sanabria's cattle graze above 900 metres on thyme-scented grass; the meat needs nothing but salt and a slow oven. Most restaurants offer ternera sanabresa as a two-kilogram slab designed for sharing; the traditional accompaniment is fried potatoes and strips of piquillo pepper. If that sounds heavy, order the trout instead—netted that morning, grilled with almonds and a squeeze of lemon that costs extra but is worth it. Vegetarians get a thick vegetable stew called cocido sanabres, bulked out with chickpeas and cabbage; it's filling rather than exciting.

Wine lists are short and local. Prieto Picudo is the regional grape: lighter than Rioja, darker than Beaujolais, it arrives in tumblers and slips down like alcoholic Ribena. A bottle in a restaurant rarely tops €14; buy the same wine in the coop for €4 and the only difference is the queue of farmers at the checkout ahead of you. Finish with cañas zamoranas—deep-fried pastry straws injected with crème pâtissière. They arrive scalding; British mouths invariably regret impatience.

Sleeping in the Fifteenth Century (With Wi-Fi)

Accommodation splits between stone mansions inside the walls and modern hostals down by the river. The pick of the first is Parador de Puebla de Sanabria, a conversion of the counts' artillery headquarters with four-poster beds and views straight onto the castle keep. Doubles from €130 including breakfast; book six months ahead for August. Cheaper but equally atmospheric is Hotel Azogue, a 1490s townhouse where beams sag gracefully and the Wi-Fi password is written on the original bread oven. Expect thin walls and church bells on the hour; also expect to pay €60 a night with parking included.

If you're walking the Camino Sanabrés, the municipal albergue costs €8 for a bunk and hot shower. Pilgrims receive a discount menu del día—three courses, bread, wine and water—for €11 at any bar displaying the yellow scallop shell. Even non-walkers can eat the same lunch; nobody checks credentials.

Getting There, Getting Out

Puebla sits midway between Madrid and Santiago, making it a logical overnight on the A-52 autopista. Leave the car at the signed esplanade below the old town; the uphill cobbled drag is mercifully short but murder on wheeled suitcases. There are three daily trains from Madrid Chamartín to Puebla station, 3 km below the town—taxis wait, but the €8 fare feels steep for a five-minute ride. Buses from Zamora run twice daily except Sundays, when the service becomes theoretical rather than actual.

Leave time for the detour to the Sierra de la Culebra, Europe's best place to see wild wolves at dusk. Guided howl-watches start at €35 per person and finish well after dark; bring binoculars and a jacket because the temperature drops ten degrees the moment the sun slips behind the ridge.

Puebla de Sanabria will never shout for attention. It keeps its gates narrow, its meat well-hung and its lake inconveniently distant, which may explain why the tour companies haven't arrived in force. Come before they do—and before the murder hole gets a health-and-safety upgrade.