Peraleda del Zaucejo

The church bell strikes noon and the only other sound is gravel shifting under your boots. At 541 metres above sea level, Peraleda del Zaucejo sits high enough for the air to feel thinner, cleaner, almost sharp. Below, the Campiña Sur rolls away in wheat-coloured waves; above, buzzards wheel on thermals that rise from sun-baked slate roofs. This is not a village that shouts for attention—it simply waits, 477 souls scattered across a grid of six short streets, until you decide to stop driving.

The Vertical Village

Altitude changes everything. Mornings here can be ten degrees cooler than Badajoz, 85 km to the west, so a June dawn may call for a fleece while the plains swelter. In January the wind skims across open cereal fields, finds the gap between collar and skin, and reminds you why local houses have walls half a metre thick. The pavement rises gently from the single petrol station to the church, enough of a gradient that elderly residents pause halfway, hands on hips, catching breath they swear wasn’t so scarce last year.

That church—Parroquia de Santa Catalina—doesn’t need a tower to dominate. Its bulk is sufficient, stone the colour of dry biscuit, capped with orange clay tiles that turn almost pink when wet. Step inside and the temperature drops another five degrees; the nave smells of wax and the previous Sunday’s incense. No audioguues, no gift shop, just a printed sheet laminated at the font: horarios de misa. The font itself is granite, worn smooth on the rim by centuries of urgent christenings before the ride back to outlying cortijos.

Walk the perimeter and you’ll see how agriculture elbows right up to the doorsteps. A corral built for goats now stores irrigation hose; a stone granary, door askew, houses a single green tractor. These outbuildings are the village’s real monuments—functional, unpretty, honest. Ask at Bar Faica whose grandfather raised the beams and you’ll get three conflicting answers plus a free tapa of chorizo that was definitely in the pig last winter.

Walking the Skyline

Leave the tarmac at the top of Calle Real and within two minutes the wheat swallows you whole. There are no signed routes, only farm tracks that braid and separate like loose wool. One leads to a ruined cortijo where storks nest on the chimney pot; another peters out at a reservoir the size of three football pitches, its surface rippling black with winter ducks. The land is too rolling ever to be flat, too open ever to feel enclosed—perfect country for short circular walks of an hour or two, provided you remember the golden rule: download the map before you set off. Orange coverage dies the moment you dip below the first ridge.

Spring brings a brief, almost psychedelic green that lasts until late May. By July the colour palette has narrowed to gold, ochre and the bruised purple of distant sierras. Extremaduran summer is not a season for heroic hiking; it is for slipping out at seven, back by ten, with two litres of water inside you and a third still untouched. Autumn repaints the stubble fields in soft rust and fills the air with the smell of crushed thyme. In winter the landscape simplifies to charcoal and pewter—beautiful if you don’t mind horizontal rain and the knowledge that the nearest hospital is 45 minutes away.

Birdlife compensates for the lack of dramatic peaks. Crested larks rise vertically in front of your boots; a booted eagle may shadow you for half a kilometre before banking away. Dawn and dusk are orchestral: partridges call from every thistle patch, and stone curwits scream across the darkness like unoiled hinges. Bring binoculars, but don’t expect hides or boardwalks—here you lean on a gate and wait.

What Arrives on the Plate

Order migas at Bar Faica and you receive a plate that could double as ballast: fried breadcrumbs, shards of pancetta, whole cloves of garlic and a single bright green guindilla pepper perched on top like a warning flag. This is food calibrated for men who left for the fields at five and won’t see a kitchen again until nine. A half ration is listed but rarely acknowledged; the waiter simply repeats “¿Seguro?” until you weaken and accept the full mountain.

Extremaduran gazpacho is not the chilled tomato soup Brits expect but a thick stew of pimentón, rabbit and penny buns. It arrives bubbling in an earthenware bowl with a side plate of pimentón-coloured crisps—use them as edible spoons. Vegetarians should lower expectations: even the green beans come flecked with jamón. The set lunch, served from 14:00 sharp, costs €11 and includes wine that began life in a plastic five-litre drum behind the bar. It is perfectly drinkable, just don’t expect tasting notes.

If you’re self-catering, the tiny ultramarinos on Plaza de España opens at nine and shuts at one. Stock up on local sheep’s cheese, dense enough to make your jaws ache, and a fist-sized jar of raw honey labelled simply “de la Sierra”. There is no bakery; bread arrives in a white van around ten, and if you miss the horn you miss the loaf.

When the Village Expands

The third weekend of August the population quadruples. Cars with Munich and Geneva plates nose along streets designed for mules, and every balcony sprouts a plastic chair. The fiestas honour the Virgin of the Assumption with a procession that starts at the church, pauses for a brass band to tune up outside the chemist, then continues to the recreation area where a travelling fair installs dodgems between the olive trees. Night-time temperatures stay above 25 °C; teenage girls swap hoodies for flamenco dresses at midnight and dance until the generator cuts out.

Visit in February and you’ll witness the opposite ritual: the family matanza. Pigs that have grazed the dehesa all year are slaughtered and every gram is converted into chorizo, salchichón and morcilla. It is not staged for tourists; cameras are tolerated but questions must be tactful. By dusk the patio is hung with ruby loops of sausage, steaming in the cold air like freshly minted currency. The first tasting happens immediately: morcilla fried with chunks of bread still warm from the wood-fired oven. Strong coffee and anise follow; if you’re invited, bring a bottle of something decent and refuse exactly once when they offer seconds.

Getting Here, Getting It Right

From the UK the easiest route is Madrid airport, then west on the A-5 for 230 km. After Navalmoral de la Mata you leave the motorway and the landscape tilts upward; the final 30 km on the EX-118 wriggle through oak forest before dropping into open farmland. Allow two and a half hours total, plus a coffee stop in Trujillo where storks nest on medieval battlements and the cafés understand café con leche decaf.

Public transport is fiction. There is one bus a day from Badajoz that reaches the village at 14:17 and leaves at 06:10 next morning—fine if you enjoy 16-hour layovers on a plastic bench. Without wheels you are marooned, so hire the smallest car that can handle a stony track and fill the tank in Zafra; the village pump closes at eight and does not accept cards.

Accommodation is limited to Hotel Faica, eight rooms above the bar. Beds are firm, Wi-Fi patchy, and the front rooms overlook the street-cleaning tractor. Double rooms run €45–55 including breakfast (strong coffee, tostada, industrial jam). Bring earplugs for Saturday night when the bar televises football and victory is celebrated with car horns. Little else is open November through March, so phone ahead to check someone will actually be there to unlock the door.

The Honest Verdict

Peraleda del Zaucejo will never feature on a glossy regional brochure. It offers no Roman arch, no Michelin star, no boutique cave hotel. What it does offer is a chance to recalibrate your internal clock to the rhythm of grain and livestock, to walk under a sky so wide it makes your ordinary concerns feel petty, and to eat food that remembers exactly why lard was once currency. Come if you are content with your own company, if you can entertain yourself by noticing how the light turns a wheat field from green to beaten gold in the space of a siesta, and if you remember to fill the water bottle before the sun climbs those 541 metres. Arrive with that mindset and the village gives back more than its size suggests. Arrive expecting entertainment and you’ll be heading for the motorway again before the church bell strikes twice.