Casillas

The morning fog lifts just enough to reveal a middle-aged man in a wax jacket prodding a canvas sack of chestnuts with his walking stick. He's not checking quality—he's counting. Fifty kilos exactly, the legal daily limit during harvest season in Casillas, a granite-and-pine settlement that sits 1,000 metres above sea level on the southern flank of the Sierra de Gredos. Most British travellers have never heard of it. Spaniards, however, know the place for its nuts long before they could place it on a map.

Casillas hovers on the lip of the Tiétar Valley, ninety minutes west of Madrid by car, twenty south of the regional capital Ávila. The village looks towards the granite wall of Gredos rather than the meseta’s endless wheat, and the climate follows suit: January mornings hover around 3 °C, but the air is damp, almost Atlantic, and frost rarely lingers past ten o’clock. Summer afternoons can touch 32 °C on the same thermometer, yet the pine woods behind the houses keep the streets from baking like those in the nearby plain.

Stone, Timber and the Occasional Concrete Mis-step

Expect no arcaded plaza or baroque tower. The single-lane high street bends past two-storey houses of ochre stone, their timber balconies painted the colour of Sangría spillage. Interspersed are 1970s brick garages and a 1990s chemist rendered in peach—that period when cheap cement was considered progress across rural Spain. The overall effect is honest rather than pristine; Casillas has never been a film set, and the residents like it that way. The parish church, Nuestra Señora de la Asunción, is a squat rectangle whose sixteenth-century walls are two metres thick. Inside, the temperature drops five degrees and the smell is of candle wax, damp stone and the garlic from last night’s supper drifting off the coat of the old man in pew three.

Chestnut Currency

From mid-October the village switches currency. Coffee-shop chatter turns to "precio de la castaña" and whether the Chinese market will absorb the glut. Lorries from Barcelona and Valencia idle on the edge of town, buying up sacks that were carried down the slopes on the backs of farmers whose families have worked the same castañares since the Middle Ages. Visitors can tag along—politely, slowly. The tourist office (open 10:00–14:00, closed Mondays) will lend a mesh bag and point out the public wood above Fuente del Tejar where gathering is free, provided you stay under five kilos for personal consumption. Try roasting them on the lid of an old biscuit tin over a barbecue; the smell draws even the most reserved neighbour into conversation.

Walking Without Way-markers

Three footpaths leave the upper end of the village without fanfare. None carries the yellow-and-white graffiti of national trails; instead you rely on cairns, rusted oil drums and the common sense to turn back when the path dives into someone’s cabbage patch. The most straightforward route climbs north for forty minutes to the Pozo de los Humos, a spring that gushes even in August. Black redstarts flick between the boulders, and if the sky is clear the view stretches south across the valley to the castle-topped ridge at Oropesa. Serious walkers can keep going for another three hours to the Puerto del Pico, a Roman road pass once used to haul mercury from the Almadén mines. Carry water: cafés are non-existent once you leave earshot of the church bell.

Autumn Mushroom Politics

October also signals mushroom season, and the pine needles hide níscalos (lactarius deliciosus) and rebozuelos (chanterelles). Regulations change yearly, so ask at the Ayuntamiento for the current permit—€7 for a day ticket, €25 for the season. Guards patrol the forest roads and will confiscate baskets (plus issue a €300 fine) if you trespass on private land, clearly marked by splashes of red paint on tree trunks. Locals are twitchy about sharing spots; diplomacy means greeting first, asking second, and never, ever pocketing a fungi you cannot name.

What to Eat and When

There are two places to eat within the village boundary. Bar La Plaza opens at seven for strong coffee and churros on Saturday, then serves mountain stew (cocido), kid goat roasted with garlic, or a vegetarian judión bean casserole if ordered a day ahead. Expect to pay €12–14 for a menú del día that includes wine poured from a plastic jug. Opposite, Casa Paco only fires the grill at weekends; its patatas revolconas—paprika-stained potatoes mashed with pork fat—arrive under a fried egg and will undo whatever good the morning hike achieved. Both places close by 22:00; plan accordingly or stock up in Ávila on the drive in.

Getting There Without a Car

Public transport is thin. Monday to Friday one bus leaves Madrid’s Estación Sur at 15:30, reaches Arenas de San Pedro at 17:45, and connects with a local microbús that deposits you in Casillas by 18:15. The return leg leaves at 06:45, an hour that favours commuters over holiday-makers. Car hire from Madrid airport adds €40 per day for a Fiat 500; the final 30 km on the AV-941 twist through cork-oak forest and are single-track in places—mirror-scraping territory if you meet an oncoming cattle lorry.

Where to Sleep

Accommodation totals eight legal beds. Casa Rural La Chimenea is a 250-year-old house split into two apartments: beams the width of railway sleepers, wood-burning stove, and Wi-Fi that flickers whenever someone microwaves supper across the lane. Weekends in October cost €90 per night for the two-bedroom unit; mid-week drops to €65. Bring slippers—the stone floors are unforgiving in the dawn chill. The alternative is the hostal above Bar La Plaza: three rooms sharing two bathrooms, €35 for a double, towels thin enough to read a newspaper through. Hot water lasts eight minutes; shower fast.

Fiestas or Silence?

Visit in mid-August and you’ll collide with the Fiestas de la Virgen, four days of brass bands that finish at three in the morning, street stalls selling cheap lager and doughnuts, and a procession where the statue of the Virgin is carried past neighbours arguing about last year’s flower bill. Spectacle, yes, but forget star-gazing or bird-watching until the final rocket fizzles out. Late April, by contrast, brings blossom on the almond trees and only the sound of axes splitting chestnut logs for next winter. The choice depends on whether you travel for bedlam or for bed.

Honest Verdict

Casillas will not change your life. It offers no cathedral, no Michelin star, no beach. What it does give is a working example of how modern Castile survives on timber, fungi and a stubborn attachment to fruit that once fed Roman legions. Come with boots, a phrasebook and enough Spanish to ask permission before crossing a field. Leave with your pockets smelling of woodsmoke and a kilo of chestnuts that will pop explosively on your own grill back in Blighty—an edible souvenir with a story better than any fridge magnet.