Navalosa

The stone church clock strikes nine and the only reply is a dog barking somewhere up a granite lane. At 1,300 metres, night air carries the twin scents of pine resin and wood-smoke; the village is already buttoned up against the cold, shutters drawn over timber balconies that wouldn’t look out of place in the Bernese Oberland. Navalosa doesn’t do “welcome cocktails” or twinkling rooftop bars. It does silence, stars you can read by, and paths that start directly outside the cottage door.

A grid you can learn in ten minutes

Navalosa’s layout was dictated by livestock, not town planners. Two parallel streets run along the contour line; short, sloping alleys drop between them like stitches. Granite houses are built end-on to the slope so cattle once entered straight into the ground-floor stable while the family lived above. Many still do, though the cows have been replaced by hatchbacks. You can walk from the lower fountain to the last house at the top in eight minutes, and that includes stopping to read the brass plaque honouring emigrants who left for Argentina in 1903.

There is no monumental core, no fee to enter anything. The Iglesia de San Juan, rough-hewn and lime-washed, keeps its doors unlocked; inside, the cool smells of candle wax and mountain damp replace incense. If you arrive after the Saturday evening service you may find hymn books left open exactly where the singing stopped, as though the congregation simply melted into the night.

Forest before breakfast

Step past the last lamp-post and you are in pinar, the native Scots-pine forest that blankets the southern flank of the Sierra de Gredos. Waymarking is sporadic – a dab of yellow on a trunk, a cairn on a boulder – so download the free IGN map before you leave British coverage. A thirty-minute climb on the old mule track (known locally as the Camino de la Charca) brings you onto a meadow nicknamed “the aircraft carrier”, a treeless shelf that gives a straight-line view south across the Alberche valley. On hazy days the horizon melts into the plains of Extremadura; after rain you can pick out the cathedral spire in Ávila, 45 kilometres away.

Longer options fan out from here. The GR-10 long-distance footpath skirts the village, threading west toward the circus walls of the Gredos cirque and east toward the gentler Béjar range. Neither segment requires technical gear between May and October, but after heavy snow the same tracks become serious winter routes; villagers run snow-shoe circuits for neighbours, not for punters, and there is no ski rental. If white powder has fallen, ask first at the Colmado whether anyone is heading up – they’ll know whose footprints to follow and, more importantly, who turned back yesterday.

What passes for infrastructure

Navalosa’s year-round population hovers around 300, enough to keep the primary school open but not enough for a bank. The solitary cash machine sits 18 kilometres away in Piedrahíta; fill your wallet before you leave the A-50 motorway. The village shop opens 09:00-14:00, shelves stocked with UHT milk, tinned octopus and locally dried judión beans the size of conkers. Bread arrives at 11:30; if you want a baguette, be on the doorstep at 11:29.

Phone reception is a lottery. EE usually manages one bar on the main square; Vodafone and O2 give up altogether inside stone houses. Most cottages now include Wi-Fi, but download offline maps and the occasional Kindle title before you settle in for the night.

Eating out means Casa Macario, the only full-service restaurant, open Friday evening through Sunday lunch. The menu rarely exceeds a dozen items: judiones con perdiz (a mellow bean and partridge stew), chuletón of Avileña beef designed for sharing, and a light queso de oveja that tastes faintly of thyme. A one-kilogram T-bone costs €38 and comfortably feeds three Brits who’ve spent the morning on a ridge. Book by Friday 10:00 or you’ll be handed a stool at the bar while Spanish families monopolise the tables until siesta time. Outside those 48 hours, self-catering is the rule; the nearest supermarket with fresh fish and lettuce is in Ávila, a 50-minute drive.

Seasons that change the rules

Spring arrives late. Snow can still whiten the pass in April, but lower meadows erupt with crocuses and the first bee-eaters appear overhead. This is walking perfection – cool mornings, 18 °C afternoons, wild thyme underfoot – yet the village stays quiet; most Spanish second-home owners won’t appear until July.

August turns the formula upside down. Daytime temperatures brush 32 °C, but the air is so dry that shade genuinely cools. Thick granite walls keep interiors bearable, though teenagers may still complain about the absence of a pool. The fiesta patronale kicks off mid-month: brass bands in the square at midnight, communal paella dished out at 15:00, and a fleeting population boom of 800. If you crave silence, come the week after the party, when ex-pats return to Madrid and the plaza belongs once more to swallows and the odd cider-sipping shepherd.

Autumn is mushroom season. Boletus and níscalos appear after the first September storms; locals guard productive sites with the same zeal Scots keep secret salmon pools. Polite visitors stick to photographing fungi rather than pocketing them. By late October nights dip below 5 °C; log fires start in earnest and the smell of cured oak drifts from every chimney.

Winter is serious. Snow can block the AV-941 approach road for a day or two – the council clears it, but the priority is getting milk trucks to the dairy in neighbouring Puerto Castilla. Chains or four-wheel-drive are mandatory kit between December and February. What you get in exchange is hush so complete you hear your own pulse, and a starscape that makes Greenwich Observatory feel over-lit. Step outside at 23:00, let your eyes adjust, and the Milky Way becomes a three-dimensional spill of cloud across the sky.

Why you might leave early – or stay forever

Navalosa offers no souvenir shops, no paddle-board rentals, no cocktail list. Evenings revolve around board games, books and the crackle of oak logs. Mobile-addicted children declare the place “dead” within half an hour; walkers with a taste for empty ridges think they’ve stumbled on the Spain tourism forgot. The village is honest about what it can’t provide: taxis after midnight, soya lattes, click-and-collect. Arrive expecting rustic simplicity and you’ll leave planning a return. Arrive expecting amenities and you’ll be back down the mountain before the bread van shows up.