Saucedilla

The first clue that Saucedilla isn’t a textbook Spanish village is the bird-hide facing a bright-blue lake that never existed on any medieval map. The water is the Embalse de Arrocampo, a 14-kilometre loop dug in the 1980s to cool the turbines of the Almaraz nuclear power station 8 km downstream. Instead of scaring visitors away, the warm, shallow channels have turned the area into a fast-food counter for spoonbills, black-winged stilts and a permanent colony of white storks that nest on every available pylon. Twitchers arrive before dawn; villagers shrug and head to the bar for coffee at €1.20 a cup.

A 15-minute stroll that still feels like Spain

Leave the lake and follow the EX-390 for two minutes into the centre. Saucedilla’s high street is called Avenida de la Constitución, but most locals still say “la carretera”. Traffic lights? None. The parish church of San Juan Bautista squats at the top of a modest square of lime-washed houses; its bell strikes the quarters whether anyone is listening or not. Stone corners are rounded off by centuries of passing carts, and the smell inside is of candle wax rather than incense. Opening times are flexible – knock at the house opposite and the key usually appears within five minutes.

Carry on for another block and the tarmac thins into a farm track. Fields of tomatoes and peppers start literally where the pavement ends; a tractor may trundle past carrying pallets of irrigation pipe. The village boundary is so blurred that one minute you’re beside the chemist, the next you’re in dehesa dotted with holm oaks and grazing ewes. Circular walks of 4–6 km are sign-posted from the old railway station (trains stopped in 1981) and maps are pinned under plastic outside the town hall, open 09:00-14:00 on weekdays. Take a photo – phone signal on Vodafone or Orange drops to one bar as soon as you leave the main road.

Reservoir wildlife without the entry fee

Bird hides are free and never locked. From the mirador at Vado de la Anguila, 3 km north, you can tick off purple heron, great reed warbler and, if you visit between February and August, the glossy ibis that breeds in the tamarisk fringe. Bring binoculars; the village shop sells only basic groceries, not optics. A gravel track skirts the eastern shore – fine for hire cars if you keep speed low and avoid the drainage ditches. Stay for sunset: the water steams gently, storks clatter overhead and the cooling towers of Almaraz glow like twin lighthouses in the dusk. It is, admittedly, an odd backdrop for a G&T, yet the contrast feels utterly contemporary Spanish rather than picture-postcard past.

Food that arrives with the farm, not the ferry

Meals are taken slowly. The single restaurant, Mesón La Dehesa on C/ Generalísimo Franco, opens only at lunch time and closes when the last diner leaves. Expect migas extremeñas (fried breadcrumbs laced with garlic and diced bacon) followed by caldereta de cordero, a mild lamb stew served, slightly bizarrely, with a side of chips. Vegetarians can ask for “migas sin chorizo” and will get extra peppers instead of meat; nobody complains. House wine is from nearby Tierra de Barros and costs €7 a bottle – rough enough to make you appreciate the local beer, even at room temperature. If you want something softer, buy queso de oveja La Retorta at the Friday market stall: runny, buttery, and nothing like the Manchego sold in British supermarkets. A small wheel is about €8 and will survive the journey home in a suitcase if wrapped in a sock.

Why most people drive straight past

There is no petrol station, no cash machine after 14:00 on Saturday, and no hotel. Saucedilla makes no attempt to keep you overnight. The nearest bed is a rural cottage in Campo Arañuelo 12 km away, or the parador at Oropesa 35 minutes up the A-5. Day-trippers from Madrid often arrive expecting a whitewashed hill-town and leave disappointed: the streets are flat, modern brickwork mixes with 19th-century adobe, and the souvenir choice is limited to a single fridge-magnet design showing – inevitably – a stork. Coach parties simply do not come here, which is either a drawback or a blessing depending on your tolerance for guided commentary.

When to cut your losses – and when to stay

Turn up in July and the thermometer can hit 42 °C by noon; walking then is foolish. Spring and autumn give comfortable 20 °C highs, wildflowers or autumn crocus in the reservoir margins, and the clearest light for photography. Winter is crisp but can be foggy; on still days the nuclear plume drifts horizontally like a low cloud, an eerie sight that photographers love and everyone else finds slightly unsettling. If the wind is from the west you’ll smell the feral cumin of the dehesa rather than anything industrial, but perceptions matter and some visitors simply prefer to keep driving.

Tacking Saucedilla onto a longer loop

Because the village itself occupies under an hour, it works best as a hinge between two better-known stops. Approach from Plasencia (35 min) in the morning, pause here for lunch and bird-watching, then continue to the medieval walls of Oropesa or the Roman bridge at Alcántara before heading back to the A-5. Public transport will not cooperate: one bus a day links Saucedilla with Navalmoral de la Mata, and it is timed for schoolchildren, not tourists. Hire a car at Madrid airport and accept the €25 toll each way on the A-5; the road is fast, but lorry convoys thicken around Navalmoral and can add 30 minutes to the journey.

The bottom line

Saucedilla will not change your life, fill your Instagram grid or empty your wallet. It offers instead a slice of modern rural Spain where electricity pylons double as stork nurseries and the bar owner remembers how you take your coffee on the second visit. Come for the birds, stay for lunch, leave before supper – or linger until the storks settle and the reservoir turns silver under the moonlight. Either way, you’ll have seen a corner of Extremadura that most British travellers still haven’t Googled, let alone visited.