Bañobárez

The church bell strikes seven and the temperature drops four degrees in as many minutes. At 750 m above sea level, nightfall on the Salamanca plateau works like a guillotine—one moment you’re sweating in the late-summer heat, the next you’re grateful for the wool jumper you stuffed into your rucksack that morning. Bañobárez, a scatter of granite houses clinging to a ridge in Tierra de Vitigudino, has no traffic lights, no cash machine, and only one place to sleep that isn’t someone’s spare room. What it does have is air so clear that on a sharp winter dawn you can pick out the slate roofs of Villarino de los Aires, 18 km away, without squinting.

Granite, Oak and Sky

Every building here is the colour of weathered tin. Masons worked the local stone so the walls seem to grow out of the bedrock, their blocks trimmed only enough to let a window fit square. Narrow lanes slope towards the plaza, where a single bar sets out metal tables under a pollarded plane tree. Order a caña and you’ll get a free tapa of farinato—Salamanca’s peppery sausage that arrives crumbled and fried, the fat staining the paper plate translucent. The plaza is the village’s lungs; old men arrive at ten, leave at two, return at six, and nobody checks a watch.

Above the roofs rises the squat tower of the parish church, rebuilt in 1894 after a lightning strike. Step inside and the temperature falls another degree; the granite holds cold like a cellar. The altarpiece is pine, not marble, painted the same ox-blood red used on local ox yokes. No one will stop you climbing the tower, but the staircase is so narrow you ascend sideways, emerging onto a parapet where storks have laid a messy wreath of sticks the size of kindling. From here the view is all horizontal: dehesa rolling to every compass point, the trees spaced like olives in a £200 bottle of oil.

Walking the Boundaries

Bañobárez sits on the western lip of the Iberian plateau; walk 5 km south-east and you drop 200 m into the valley of the River Uz, a ribbon of green maize among the pale grass. The GR-14 long-distance path passes within 3 km, but most visitors prefer the unsigned web of livestock tracks that radiate from the village. A favourite circuit heads north past the ruined cortijo of La Romedina, then climbs to a wind-bent oak whose trunk carries 19th-century initials cut by charcoal burners. Allow two hours, take more water than you think—there’s none en route—and expect to meet more cattle than people. In April the ground is a patchwork of mauve grape-hyacinth and yellow daisies; by late June the grass has bleached to straw and the only colour comes from the scarlet poppies that follow the tractor drills.

Cyclists should note the gradients: gentle on the plateau, brutal in the valleys. A 30 km loop south-west to Villar de Ciervo gains and loses 400 m twice; the tarmac is silky, the traffic one car per half-hour. Mountain-bike hire is non-existent, so bring your own or ask at the bar—Paco keeps two well-used hybrids behind the kitchen and will lend one for the price of two coffees.

What Supper Costs

Evenings revolve around food. The only restaurant, attached to the Cabanas de la Romedina cabins, opens only with prior notice; phone before noon. Expect a set menu of soup or salad, roast kid or beef from the dehesa, and a slab of queso castellano so dry it squeaks on your teeth. Price is €18 including wine, cheaper if you ask for the “menu del peregrino” and pretend you’re on the Camino (no one checks credentials). If the restaurant is closed, the bar will grill a chuletón—a T-bone the width of a saucer—provided you order before the chef clocks off at ten. Vegetarians get tortilla, salad, or both; vegans should shop in Vitigudino first.

Breakfast is simpler: coffee with a shot of anisette and a palmera pastry that arrives in plastic wrap. Yet the butter is local, unsalted, and tastes of wild thyme the cows graze along the field margins. Ask for “miel de brezo” and you’ll receive thistle honey thick enough to stand a spoon in, produced by an apiary 4 km west and sold for €6 a jar.

Winter Silence, Summer Smoke

Access changes with the season. From November to March the EX-390 between Bañobárez and Vitigudino is routinely closed by drifting snow; carry blankets and a full tank. When the road is open, frost lingers in the shadows until noon and the granite houses exhale wood smoke that smells of eucalyptus and old chestnut. Night temperatures dip to –8 °C; the Cabanas cabins have wood-burning stoves but charge €10 extra for a basket of logs. Bring slippers—the stone floors suck heat from bare feet.

Summer brings the opposite problem: 35 °C at three in the afternoon, no shade outside the plaza. The village fountain, installed in 1923, still runs potable water; fill your bottle and tip your hat to the elderly women who rinse lettuce there rather than pay for tap water at home. August is fiesta week: one travelling fairground ride, one brass band, and a bull-run through streets barely four metres wide. Visitors triple the population; book accommodation six weeks ahead or sleep in your car.

Getting There, Getting Out

No railway comes within 60 km. From the UK, fly to Madrid, then take the ALSA coach to Salamanca (2 h 15 min, €22). A second coach continues to Vitigudino (1 h 20 min, €7), from where a Monday-only local bus reaches Bañóbarez at 14:30. Miss it and a taxi costs €25; hitchhiking is tolerated but lifts are scarce on crop-spraying days. Drivers should leave the A-62 at Salamanca and follow the SA-300/EX-390 for 95 km; the final 12 km twist through holm-oak forest where wild boar trot across the tarmac at dusk. Fill up in Vitigudino—the village pump closed in 2008 and the nearest fuel is 28 km away.

When to Cut Your Losses

Bañobárez is not for everyone. If you need a cashpoint, nightlife, or a choice of pillows, stay in Salamanca and visit on a day trip. Mobile coverage is patchy—Vodafone picks up one bar on the church steps, nothing indoors. Rain can strand you for 48 hours when the clay tracks turn to axle-deep glue. Yet if you measure value by the clarity of starlight, by the taste of beef that grazed within sight of your table, or by the novelty of a place where the loudest sound at midnight is a donkey coughing in a field, the village earns its keep. Arrive with a full tank, an empty stomach, and no fixed itinerary; leave when the church bell rings and you realise you can already tell the time by the angle of the sun on the granite.