Navaluenga

The Alberche arrives in Navaluenga cold enough to make your calves ache, even in July. It has already tumbled forty kilometres from the Gredos glaciers, squeezing between granite walls and pine roots, before widening into tea-coloured pools on the edge of town. By 9 a.m. the first families are spreading towels on the flat slabs; by 11 the rocks echo with Spanish that still carries a Madrid accent. Stay till late afternoon and you’ll have the water to yourself again, the only sound the river and the occasional clack of a stone being skipped across to the opposite bank.

A town that measures altitude, not monuments

Navaluenga sits at 763 m, high enough for the air to feel rinsed and for nights to drop below 20 °C when the capital is still stewing at 30 °C. The southern flank of the Sierra de Gredos acts as a climatic shield: winters bring sharp, blue mornings and the odd week of snow that blocks the AV-501; spring and early autumn arrive two beats later than on the meseta and stay longer. That lag is what pulls Madrileños out of the A-5 on Friday evening—yet the village still numbers only 2,050 souls, so the invasion is absorbable. Come mid-September and the car park above the charcas is three-quarters empty; the temperature still hovers round 26 °C and the water, now sun-warmed all summer, is at its most inviting.

Don’t expect a textbook old quarter. Stone houses with wooden balconies line Calle Real in a higgledy-piggledy run that ends abruptly at the 1950s brickwork of the primary school. The church tower, rebuilt piecemeal after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, is the only vertical reference point; everything else sprawls horizontally, as if the mountains had pressed the town flat. Granite walls are patched with cement, geraniums sprout from olive-oil tins, and the Saturday market occupies exactly half the central square—eight stalls, cash only, tomatoes sold by the kilo not the plastic box. It is lived-in, slightly scruffy, and all the better for it.

Following the river, not the guidebook

The Alberche is not a backdrop here; it is the organising principle. Irrigation channels built by the Benedictines in the twelfth century still split the water through allotments of runner beans and chard. Elderly residents walk the bank each morning with secateurs, checking that no neighbour has redirected the flow overnight. Anglers stand thigh-deep at dawn, casting for barbel under the railway viaduct—permits €8 a day from the ayuntamiento, closed on Sunday, so plan ahead.

Upstream, the river widens into a string of natural pools known simply as las charcas. The largest, La Charca de los Gabarreros, is five minutes by car on a road so narrow you’ll reverse into a pine hedge at least once. A shelf of pale granite creates a knee-deep paddling lagoon safe for toddlers; ten metres further out the bottom drops to three metres and the current quickens. No lifeguards, no buoys, just a homemade plank that serves as a diving board and a notice that reads “No hay salvamento: nadar es tu responsabilidad”. British visitors tend to approve of the honesty.

Bring reef shoes—submerged stones are slimy—and a picnic; the nearest bar is a twenty-minute scramble along the bank. In August the pools fill with bocadillo wrappers and reggaeton; outside the fortnight either side of the 15th the atmosphere reverts to church-outing quiet.

Walking tracks that start where the pavement ends

Three way-marked trails leave from the top of Calle de la Constitución. The easiest, the 5 km Ruta de los Molinos, follows the river downstream past ruined flour mills now used as weekend refuges for goats. Red-and-white stripes are painted on rocks every hundred metres; even so, download the GPX before you set off—way-marking is enthusiastic but erratic, and the only map board in town is bleached to the colour of weak tea.

Keener hikers can link to the GR-10 which climbs through pine and pyrenean oak to the refuge of El Rebollar (1,450 m). The ascent is 700 m of calf-burning switchbacks; the pay-off is a view south across the Alberche gorge that on a clear day picks out the cathedral of Ávila thirty-five kilometres away. Allow five hours return, carry more water than you think—there are no fountains above 1,000 m—and start early; afternoon cloud builds quickly and thunder echoes off the granite slabs long before rain reaches the valley.

Mountain-bike hire is available, in theory, from the petrol station on the AV-501. Ring ahead; if Miguel is around he’ll unlock a shed containing half a dozen well-used Orbeas. No helmets, no paperwork, €20 for the day plus a photocopy of your passport. The forest tracks west of town form a satisfying loop through charcoal-burners’ clearings, but expect loose baby-head rocks and the occasional ford. A woman from Oxford once described it as “the Camino meets mountain-bike trial—only with vultures overhead instead of scallop shells.”

What arrives on the plate

Navaluenga’s restaurants number precisely four, plus a weekend-only asador that opens when the owner feels like it. Menus revolve around local beef, beans and whatever the river can still provide. Judiones del Barco—buttery white beans grown twenty kilometres upstream—arrive in clay cazuelas thick enough to use as a doorstop. A portion for two costs €14 and defeats most appetites. Chuletón, a T-bone hacked from Avileña-Retinta cattle that graze the high pastures, is flashed over holm-oak embers until the exterior blackens and the interior stays the colour of an English rare sirloin. Expect €28 per kilo (a single steak often weighs 1.2 kg) and no vegetable garnish beyond a plate of roasted pimientos de padrón.

House wine comes from the Cebreros D.O., a garnacha that tastes of graphite and sun-baked strawberries. British drinkers note: it is served at somewhere approaching 24 °C. Ask for “un poco menos caliente” and the waiter will disappear out back, then return with the same bottle plunged momentarily into the ice bucket—pragmatic rather than doctrinaire.

Vegetarians survive on tortilla and the seasonal setas (wild mushrooms) that appear in October after the first rains. Vegans should self-cater; the supermarket on Plaza de España stocks almond milk only because the owner’s daughter developed a lactose allergy while at university in Leeds.

When the sun drops behind the pine ridge

Evenings follow a predictable rhythm. At 20:30 the terraces fill with men in fleece vests drinking cañas and debating whether the Alberche is running clearer than last year. By 22:00 families drift home, metal shutters roll down with a clatter, and the square is suddenly silent except for the church bell striking the half hour. There is no nightlife; the last taxi back from El Barraco costs €25 and must be booked before 21:00. Bring a pack of cards and a bottle of something stronger than the local garnacha.

The upside is the sky: at 763 m and forty kilometres from the nearest big city the Milky Way appears like a smear of chalk on black slate. Lie on the warm bonnet of your hire car and you’ll see satellites chasing each other westward; if you stay till September you may catch the Perseids burning up overhead, the only fireworks Navaluenga bothers with.

Getting there, getting out

Fly to Madrid, pick up a car at T1, and point the sat-nav at the A-5. Tolls are minimal, petrol cheaper than France, and the exit at Las Barrancas is clearly signed. Total driving time is 70 minutes unless you leave the airport at 15:30 on a Friday, in which case double it. Public transport exists but functions as a daily timetable rather than a tourist service: three buses from Madrid’s Príncipe Pío station to El Barraco, then a taxi. Miss the connection and you’ll spend the night in a town with one bar and a bench.

Winter access is usually straightforward, but a week of snow can close the AV-501 between Navaluenga and El Hoyo de Pinares. Carry blankets and a full tank from December to March; mobile coverage drops to zero in the gorge. Conversely July and August bring 38 °C heat and a tourist influx that triples supermarket queues. May–June and mid-September–October hit the sweet spot: warm days, cool nights, empty pools, and a town that returns to being itself rather than Madrid’s annex.

Leave before you need souvenir shops, and after you’ve remembered how an evening sounds without traffic. That generally takes three days—four if the river is running high and you decide to stay for one more swim.