Benquerencia de la Serena

Morning in the Highlands

At 670 metres above sea level, Benquerencia de la Serena wakes to a soundscape that vanished from most of Europe decades ago. Cowbells drift across limestone roofs, mixing with the scrape of metal shutters as the village's 808 residents greet the dawn. By seven o'clock, the bakery on Calle Real has sold out of its palmitas pastries; by eight, the only traffic is a farmer's Land Rover heading for the dehesa oak pastures that surround the settlement like a ruffled green blanket.

The altitude matters here. Even in July, nights drop to 16°C—bring a jumper if you're staying past sunset—and winter mornings can start at minus three. That crisp air carries the scent of wild thyme and, after rain, the richer smell of wet granite and sheep wool. Geographers call it the southern Meseta; locals simply say "arriba" (up here) when they drive down to the provincial capital, Badajoz, 120 kilometres and a full 45-minute descent away.

Stone, Lime and the Memory of Wool

No grand plaza or medieval gate announces Benquerencia. The village spreads along a ridge in three short streets whose width was designed for mules, not Minis. Houses are single-storey, thick-walled, whitewashed annually before the fiestas. Look closely and you'll spot the old wool-dyeing troughs built into walls—remnants from the 19th century when merino sheep outnumbered humans four-to-one. The troughs are dry now, painted the same chalky white as everything else, but they explain why door lintels sit lower than modern standards: people were shorter after centuries of protein-poor diets.

The parish church, closed between 14:00 and 17:30 unless the sacristan is gardening, contains a 17th-century cedar retable whose paint still shows flecks of cochineal red. Admission is free; the donation box funds roof tiles that cost €3.40 each, according to a handwritten notice that also requests "no flash photography—the paint is tired." Outside, swallows nest in the eaves, unconcerned by the bells that ring the hour five minutes late, Spanish style.

A Landscape that Measures Time in Centuries

Walk five minutes west and tarmac turns into a granite track known as the Cañada Real Leonesa, one of the ancient droving routes that once moved livestock from northern Spain to winter pastures. Today it makes an easy 6-kilometre loop through dehesa—open oak woodland where black Iberian pigs graze beneath holm and cork trees. April brings drifts of white cistus flowers; October delivers the sharp sweetness of fermenting acorns. Neither season charges an entry fee, and you're unlikely to meet anyone apart from a shepherd on an ATV checking battery-powered fencing.

Serious walkers can continue south-east to the abandoned castle of Benquerencia el Viejo, a 12-kilometre round trip with 250 metres of ascent. The fortress, ruined since the 15th-century War of the Castilian Succession, sits on a granite tor overlooking the Guadiana basin. Take water: there are no cafés, and mobile coverage vanishes after the second cattle grid. The reward is a 60-kilometre view across La Serena plain, rippling like a calm sea under heat haze.

What Passes for Gastronomy

Benquerencia has one bar, La Encina, open from 07:00 for coffee and churros until the last customer leaves—usually before 23:00. The menu is handwritten on a scrap of cardboard: migas (fried breadcrumbs with chorizo), revuelto de setas (wild-mushroom scramble) and presa ibérica, a shoulder cut that arrives pink and juicy. A plate costs €9, wine included; payment is cash only, and the nearest ATM is 18 kilometres away in Castuera, so fill your wallet before you arrive.

For self-caterers, the Tuesday-morning fish van parks by the church at 11:00 selling hake and prawns from Huelva frozen on the boat. Locals rate the goat's-cheese vendor who turns up on Fridays; his queso de cabra is wrapped in chestnut leaves and keeps for a week without refrigeration, handy if you're renting a cottage with a cool stone larder.

When the Village Throws a Party

Fiestas patronales begin on the last weekend of August with a foam party in the concrete polideportivo—think village disco meets car-wash—followed by three days of processions, brass bands and bull-running in a makeshift ring constructed from hay bales. Visitors are welcome to join the peña clubs that compete in greasy-pole climbing and olive-stone spitting; victory earns a crate of beer and the right to choose next year's poster design.

Easter is quieter. The Thursday-night silent procession follows a route lit only by handheld candles; hooded penitents carry drums that beat once every 30 seconds, echoing off stone like a slow heartbeat. Photographs are discouraged—"This is prayer, not folklore," a steward will whisper—so stand back, pocket the phone and experience the medieval chill.

The Practical Bit (Because You'll Need It)

Getting here: Fly to Seville or Madrid, hire a car and drive. From Seville take the A-66 north, then EX-346 east; total time 2 hours 15 minutes. Public transport stops at Castuera; a taxi from there costs €35 each way and must be booked a day ahead.

Where to sleep: Benquerencia has no hotel. The nearest beds are at Hotel Cortijo Santa Cruz in Villanueva de la Serena, 32 kilometres west (doubles from €55, including breakfast). Rural cottages inside the village start at €60 per night; keys are collected from the bakery.

Fuel & supplies: The petrol station on the EX-113 closes at 20:00 and doesn't accept UK credit cards after 14:00 when the phone line switches off for siesta. Stock water and snacks before you leave the main road.

Weather warning: Summer afternoons hit 38°C; walking after 11:00 is reckless. Winter brings Atlantic fronts that turn dirt tracks into gumbo—carry snow chains above 600 metres between December and February.

An Honest Goodbye

Benquerencia de la Serena will not change your life. It offers no souvenir shops, no sunset viewpoints with Instagram frames, not even a reliable Wi-Fi signal. What it does give is a calibration point: a place where the 21st century feels negotiable, where lunch is still the day's main event and where a stranger can drink a coffee, watch clouds shadow the dehesa and remember that travelling needn't always be about collecting sights. Drive away before dusk if you must be elsewhere by nightfall, but roll the windows down—those cowbells carry for miles, and the road back to the motorway has never sounded lonelier.