Arenas de San Pedro

The tarmac outside the bus station melts at 38°C in late July, yet 25 minutes up the valley the Gredos peaks still carry last winter’s snow. That contrast explains Arenas de San Pedro better than any guidebook superlative: a market town that lives with the mountains rather than simply looking at them.

At 510m above sea level the place sits low enough for almond and fig trees to survive, but the streets tilt gently towards the Sierra de Gredos and every side road seems to end in a granite track that climbs out of sight. Locals treat 2,000-metre ridges as back garden; visitors who arrive without walking boots usually buy a pair next morning.

Bourbon fingerprints on Castilian stone

The town’s brief brush with royalty still shapes its centre. In 1764 the Infante Don Luis, younger brother of Carlos III, chose Arenas for a summer palace and brought with him an Italian architect, a French gardener and – briefly – Francisco de Goya, who painted the family in a salon that is now closed to the public. You can walk the perimeter of the Palacio de la Mosquera in four minutes: neoclassical columns, rust-stained stucco and iron balconies that wouldn’t look out of place in Madrid’s Retiro. The gates stay locked except for the odd concert or Feast-day Mass; security guards shrug and admit the state of repair “depends on Madrid budgets”. Still, the façade is handsome enough, and the adjoining gardens give shade when the Terraza bars on Plaza España run out of umbrellas.

Opposite the palace, the fourteenth-century Castle of the Sad Countess keeps watch from a modest crag. Juana Pimentel spent fourteen years imprisoned there by a jealous husband; the story sells postcards but the fortress itself is pure military geometry—bare walls, slit windows and a tower you can climb only at weekends. Turn up on a Tuesday and the wooden door is bolted; the tourist office hands out a slip of paper with the key-holder’s mobile number and a polite warning that he charges €3 even if you only want “a quick look”.

Rivers, pools and the search for silence

The Arenal river splits the town in two. On summer evenings families colonise the concrete balustrades above the weir, lowering fishing lines for carp they never intend to catch. A ten-minute walk upstream brings you to the Pozo de los Patos, a natural pool big enough for thirty swimmers and already noisy by 10 a.m. in August. Arrive before nine and you share the water with retired farmers who swim widths then sit on the stones in their caps discussing rainfall. Stay after five and you compete with teenagers and portable speakers. The rule is simple: July is crowded, August worse; late May or late September and you get the place to yourself plus dragonflies.

For cooler water and fewer people you need wheels. The Garganta de Gualtaminos, 12km north-west, is a mountain gorge where the stream narrows to two metres and the temperature drops ten degrees. Park on the verge beside a hand-painted “Zona de Baño” sign, follow the goat track for fifteen minutes and you reach granite slides polished smooth by thousands of backsides. No lifeguard, no bar, no mobile signal—take water shoes and a picnic or you’ll go hungry.

High country, high stakes

Arenas functions as the low-key gateway to the high Gredos, but the serious trailheads lie another 40 minutes up the AV-931. From the parking plateau at Plataforma de Gredos it is 8km and 700 vertical metres to the Laguna Grande, a cirque lake that stays frozen some years until June. The path is obvious, the weather is not: clouds can race in from the west, drop the temperature to 5°C and obscure the cairns in less than an hour. British walkers used to Lake District fickleness still get caught—every summer the Guardia Civil lifts someone off the hill in a helicopter because they started out in shorts and a vest.

Day hikes closer to town are gentler. Signposts from the football ground mark a 12km loop through chestnut and rebollón oak to the abandoned village of El Hornillo. Stone terraces once grew rye; now they sprout bracken and the only inhabitants are Iberian pigs fattening on acorns. The return leg follows an old mule track with views south across the Tiétar valley—on clear days you can pick out the white houses of Candeleda 15km away.

Food that recognises hunger

Mealtimes obey the siesta clock. Kitchens shut at 4 p.m. and reopen around 8.30; if your stomach still runs on GMT the pizzeria on Calle Constitución will serve at 7, but you’ll dine alone. Otherwise do as the locals do and eat late. Mesón El Cordero grills a chuletón de Ávila over holm-oak embers: a kilo of bone-in rib-eye that arrives sizzling, edged with salt and enough fat to make cardiologists wince. Two people can just finish it; three need a plate of judiones del Barco to start, white beans the size of a 50-pence piece simmered with bay and clove. Vegetarians rarely starve—most bars will cobble together a pimientos rellenos or seta scramble if you ask—but you must specify “sin jamón” or the ham finds its way in.

Wine comes from Cebreros, the emerging D.O. based on old-vine Garnacha. Pitarra, the local cooperative label, sells for €2.20 a glass and tastes like Beaujolais with more backbone. British drinkers who find Rioja too oaky tend to approve; the barman will rinse your glass with water unless you wave him away.

When to come, when to stay away

Spring is the sweet spot. Almond blossom appears in late February, nightingales arrive in March and by April the daytime temperature hovers round 20°C—perfect for walking without the sweat. Accommodation prices stay low until Holy Week; after that Spaniards head for the hills and hotel owners double rates. Autumn repeats the trick, adding wild-mushroom menus and the grape harvest in early October.

July and August are honest-to-goodness hot. The mercury brushes 40°C most afternoons; everything except ice-cream parlours and the river shuts between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. If you must come, plan dawn starts, long lunches and evening excursions. Winter itself is mild—daytime 12–14°C—but the high Gredos roads ice over and the best walks are out of reach unless you carry crampons.

Getting here, getting stuck, getting out

There is no railway. ALSA runs four daily coaches from Madrid’s Estación Sur; the journey takes two hours twenty and costs €14. The last departure is 7 p.m.—miss it and a taxi clocks up €130 before you reach the M40. A hire car transforms the experience: the A-5 motorway is painless, and once you’re installed you can reach the vineyards of Cebreros, the Roman bridge of Candeleda or the chestnut forests of Hoyos del Espino in under half an hour. Petrol is cheaper than Britain but motorway tolls are zero, a small victory.

ATMs sometimes run dry on bank-holiday weekends; fill your wallet in Ávila if you plan to pay cash for rural casas. Mobile coverage is solid in town, patchy in valleys; download offline maps before you set off on walks.

Arenas will never win Spain’s prettiest-village contest. Its riverbanks sprout weeds, its supermarkets sell fluorescent doughnuts, and Saturday night karaoke drifts across the car park. Yet the same streets send you within an hour to wolf tracks, granite summits and wine that costs less than bottled water. Treat it as a base, not a beauty spot, and the town repays the favour with low prices, honest food and mountain air that smells of thyme and snow—even when the tarmac back in the square is hot enough to fry an egg.