Casas Del Conde Las

Morning Light on Stone and Slate

The first thing you notice is the sound of water. Not the crash of waves, but a steady murmur from the arroyo that threads beneath the village, audible in the narrow lanes where stone walls lean together like gossiping neighbours. At 900 metres above sea level, Las Casas del Conde wakes slowly; sunlight has to climb over the Sierra de Francia before it touches the slate roofs, and the air carries a mountain bite even in July.

This is not the Spain of flamenco posters or beach bars. The province of Salamanca has no coastline, and the nearest airport is an hour-and-three-quarters away in Madrid. What you get instead is a pocket-sized settlement of perhaps seventy households, wedged into a chestnut-filled gorge where the main traffic is goats heading out to graze. The village square is barely the size of a tennis court; the church bell counts the hours, and nobody hurries.

Walking Tracks that Used to be Mule Traders

Leave the hire car by the fuente at the entrance—there’s no charge, and no attendant—and walk. Every lane tilts; cobbles are polished smooth by centuries of hooves and boots. Within five minutes you are among terraces of ancient sweet-chestnut, the trunks thick as railway sleepers. These trees once paid the rent: villagers still gather the nuts in October, roast them over open fires, and fold them into stews that taste of smoke and earth.

A signed footpath, the PR-SA 54, drops from the upper cemetery to the river Alagón, then climbs again towards Miranda del Castañar, three kilometres away as the griffon vulture flies, twice that by the mule track. The gradient is honest—400 metres of ascent—so allow ninety minutes and carry water. Spring brings wild peonies and the smell of apple blossom; November turns the forest floor copper and requires a stick for the slippery leaf mould.

If that sounds too strenuous, follow the lower loop that circles the vegetable plots. Elderly residents still hoe between rows of lettuces by hand; they will nod, but rarely interrupt work for conversation. Halfway round you reach a tiny meadow where stone threshing circles lie forgotten among buttercups. Nobody charges entry, and you are unlikely to meet another walker before evening.

What Arrives on the Back of a Pick-up

Food here is dictated by altitude and calendar. Summer cherries come from La Alberca, twenty minutes down the road; winter means pork from pigs that fatten on acorns in the valley. The only shop is a dim alimentación opposite the church, open 09:00–13:00 and 17:00–20:00, closed Tuesday afternoons. Stock up on local chorizo (£8 a loop) and a slab of queso de oveja cured in olive oil; the owner will slice it with a knife kept specifically for the purpose.

For a sit-down meal you have two choices. Bar El Rincón does a three-course menú del día for €12 (£10.50) mid-week: soup, lentejas estofadas, and a slab of roast goat that tastes strongly of rosemary. They close without warning if the cook’s family turns up from Salamanca. Alternatively, drive ten minutes to Villanueva del Conde where Casa Paco grills steaks over holm-oak embers and pours robust Sierra de Francia tempranillo by the half-litre. Book at weekends; Spanish weekenders arrive in convoys of dusty SUVs.

When the Village Hall Becomes a Cinema

Festivities are low-key but stubbornly alive. The fiestas patronales fall on the last weekend of August, when temperatures slide from 32 °C at midday to 16 °C after midnight. A travelling fair erects two dodgem cars and a coconut shy on the basketball court; the local band, all brass and white gloves, marches through lanes too narrow for a trumpet to turn. At 23:00 the square fills with folding tables for the cena de hermandad—ticket £12 from the ayuntamiento three days in advance—where you eat cocido stew and listen to jokes in thick castellano that even advanced Spanish speakers struggle to follow.

October belongs to the chestnut. On the second Sunday the village hosts la magosta: bonfires, ember-roasted nuts, and young wine that still fizzes slightly. Visitors are welcome but not announced; follow the smoke and the sound of guitars. Bring your own glass—literally. Plastic is frowned upon, and the mayor keeps an eye.

Getting There, Staying Warm, Leaving Again

Public transport exists but demands stoicism. A Cosme Autocares bus leaves Salamanca’s Estación de Autobuses at 18:00 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, returning at 07:10 next morning. A single ticket costs €4.35; luggage goes in the hold with the driver’s shopping. To travel on any other day you need a car. From Madrid Barajas take the A-66 north-west, exit at junction 381, then thread the SA-220 for 24 kilometres of hairpins. Fog can drop suddenly above 800 metres; count on forty minutes for the final stretch in winter.

Accommodation is scattered through neighbouring hamlets. Casas Rurales Casas en Batuecas, two kilometres outside the village, offers stone cottages with log burners from £75 a night (minimum two nights). Firewood is extra—€8 a basket—and nights are chilly even in May. Mobile coverage is patchy; Vodafone disappears entirely in the upper lanes. Wi-Fi arrives via satellite and vanishes when it rains, which is more often than the regional tourist board admits: the Sierra de Francia catches Atlantic weather and averages 900 mm of precipitation a year.

Check-out is invariably 12:00. By then the sun has cleared the eastern ridge and the slate roofs steam gently. Swallows dive above the bell tower; somewhere a goat bell clanks. Drive away slowly—there is no petrol station for thirty kilometres—and the village shrinks in the rear-view mirror until only the chestnut forest remains, folding the houses into its green shade until next season.