Camporredondo

The First Whiff of Resin

Step out of the car and the smell hits before the view does. Hot pine resin, sharp and clean, rises from the forest floor that laps at the edge of the single-track road. At 800 metres above sea-level, the air is thinner than Madrid’s and carries the tang of sap instead of diesel. Camporredondo is little more than a ripple of low adobe houses between two folds of the Tierra de Pinares, yet the surrounding pinewoods make it feel larger than it is—an illusion that lasts until you walk the length of the village in eight quiet minutes.

The 100-odd inhabitants are outnumbered roughly fifty to one by stone pines, and the arithmetic shows. Swifts wheel above the church tower; a tractor groans once every half-hour; otherwise the soundtrack is needles shifting in the breeze. This is Castile stripped of castles and tour buses, a place whose modest claim is that nothing much happens—and that this, precisely, is the point.

Why the Houses Face Inwards

Architecture here is a practical response to nine-hundred-metre winters and forty-degree summers. Walls are thick, roofs steep enough to shrug off snow, and front doors painted the same ox-blood red you will see from Valladolid to Salamanca. Most open into gloomy zaguanes—stone-flagged entrance tunnels—that lead to interior patios where firewood is still stacked in careful Jenga towers. Peek through an open gate and you will spot the original wine bodega: a trapdoor in the courtyard, stone steps descending to a cellar that stays at fourteen degrees year-round. A few have been converted into sitting rooms; more are simply locked, the owners having migrated to Valladolid decades ago.

The parish church of San Andrés squats at the top of the only paved slope. It is not old enough to be medieval, not new enough to be cheerful: a severe rectangle softened only by a sixteenth-century doorway recycled from an earlier shrine on the same spot. The tower houses one bell, cast in 1892 and still rung by hand at noon. Time it right and you can watch the sacristan pull the rope twenty-one times—one for each hundred metres of altitude, he will tell you if you ask.

Forests that Once Paid the Rent

For four centuries the village lived off pine resin. Men scored the trunks with diagonal slashes, collected the dripping amber in clay cups, and distilled it into turpentine and rosin for shipyards and violinists. The trade died when cheaper petro-chemicals arrived, but the forest remains: a managed plantation of Pinus pinaster that stretches, almost unbroken, to the horizon. Walk south along the Camino de la Dehesa and within ten minutes you are flanked by trunks thick enough to hide a stag. The ground is carpeted with discarded cones; crack one open and the nut is sweet, though smaller than the imported pine-nuts sold in British supermarkets.

This is easy walking country—no scree, no vertigo, just wide red-earth tracks that roll rather than climb. A circular route to the abandoned hamlet of Villanueva and back is 9 km, takes three hours including a picnic stop, and requires no specialist kit beyond sensible shoes. In May the undergrowth is edged with pink cistus; in October the broom turns the colour of burnt toffee. You are more likely to meet a wild boar than another human, but the former will hear you first and melt away.

How to Eat When the Bar is Shut

Camporredondo has no restaurant, one grocery that opens three mornings a week, and a bar whose opening hours depend on whether Marisol’s grandchildren are visiting. The nearest reliable meal is a twelve-minute drive away in Portillo: Asador Casa Florencio, a stone-floored dining room where lechazo (milk-fed lamb) is roasted in a wood-fired brick oven. Order media ración—half a kilo—if there are two of you; a full kilo arrives on a pewter platter, the meat so tender you carve it with the edge of a spoon. Expect to pay €22 per person including a clay jug of house red, lighter than Rioja and easier on the head.

Back in the village, self-catering is the sensible option. Valladolid’s Mercadona (on the ring road before you turn north) stocks vacuum-packed morcilla de Burgos and small pimentón tins—light luggage if you are flying hand-only. Local eggs appear on village doorsteps in a plastic crate; leave €1.50 in the honesty box. The morning bakery van beeps its way round the plaza at 10 a.m.; buy the palm-sized muffins called panes de pueblo while they are still warm, split and spread with honey from the beekeeper in Matapozuelos.

When the Village Remembers It Has a Plaza

August changes everything. The fiestas patronales pull back anyone with family roots, swelling the population to maybe four hundred. A sound system appears in the square, fairy lights are strung between the pines, and the village smells of diesel generators and fennel from the paella pans. Events start late: children’s disco at eleven, grown-up verbena at one. If you need sleep, close the shutters and switch on the fan; the beat fades around four, resumes after the bull-running at noon. It is the only time of year when you will queue for coffee—two days either side and normal service, i.e. silence, is restored.

September brings the romería de la Virgen, a quieter procession to a tiny meadow chapel 3 km west. Locals pack picnic hampers with cold roast pork and late-season peaches; visitors are handed a plastic cup of lemonade and expected to join the walk. There is no charge, no souvenir stall, no hashtag. By the first of October the forest floor is littered with cones; villagers in hi-vis vests gather them in sacks and sell the nuts to a co-operative in Cuéllar for €6 a kilo—pin-money, literally, from the pines.

Getting There, Staying Sane

Fly to Madrid, collect a hire car at Terminal 1, and head north-west on the A-6. After Villacastín the motorway shrinks to a single-carriageway trunk road that snakes through the pine belt; turn right at the Portillo roundabout and follow the CL-615 for seven kilometres until the sat-nav loses its nerve. Download offline maps beforehand—mobile data drops to 3G on a good day, zero on a bad one. Petrol stations are scarce after 9 p.m.; fill up in Olmedo if you are arriving on a late flight.

Accommodation is limited to two rural casas. Casa Damián sleeps four, has Wi-Fi that works most evenings, and costs €90 a night with a two-night minimum. Bring slippers—the stone floors are chilly even in June—and expect the occasional power cut; candles are supplied in the kitchen drawer. There is no pool, but the forest shade is five degrees cooler than the meseta, so you will not miss it.

The Honest Verdict

Camporredondo will not change your life. It offers no Michelin stars, no selfies with architectural marvels, no craft-beer taproom. What it does provide is a calibrated antidote to the British weekend calendar of brunch, queues and notifications. The risk is boredom; the reward is silence so complete you can hear your own pulse in your ears after the third day. Come for the pines, stay for the patience lesson, leave before the stillness turns eerie.