Capilla

The castle gate is locked. A hand-written card taped to the iron bars gives a mobile number and a polite instruction: llamar al guía. Dial it and, within ten minutes, a council employee appears with a key and a €1.50 ticket—cash only, no cards. That is the entire admission procedure for the Fortaleza de Capilla, a thirteenth-century frontier stronghold that once kept the Knights Templar in olives and the Kingdom of Portugal at bay. Today it keeps watch over five streets, two squares and 161 permanent residents who live in the stone houses scattered below the crag.

Capilla sits at 558 m on the western edge of La Serena, a rolling plain of holm-oak dehesa that looks unchanged since the castle’s masons packed up. The landscape is working, not ornamental: black Iberian pigs root among the acorns, merino sheep drift between stone walls, and every gate seems to have a tractor parked behind it. British walkers who arrive expecting souvenir stalls or even a café will find neither; what they will find is a village that functions as a living fragment of medieval land management, complete with communal grain stores, sheep-dips carved into live rock and a parish church whose bell still marks the agricultural day.

The castle and the cliff path

Inside the fortress the climb is short but steep—stone stairs worn smooth by eight centuries of boots. From the battlements the view opens north across the Guadiana basin: a brown-green chessboard of pasture and plough that fades into the distance until it meets another ridge, another castle, another invisible border. Bring binoculars and you can pick out the white dots of stork nests on every available pylon; bring a hat, because shade is non-existent and the Extremaduran sun does not negotiate.

Irene Corchado Resmella, a Spain-based blogger popular with British walkers, recommends combining the castle with the Senda del Peñón del Pez, a 6 km loop that drops from the village into the ravine and climbs back through rosemary and holm-oak. The path is way-marked but faint; after rain the limestone turns slick, and in June the temperature can top 40 °C. Early spring is kinder: the grass is green, the stone walls drip with lichen and the air smells of damp earth and wild thyme. Allow two hours, carry a litre of water per person and do not rely on phone signal—there isn’t any once you leave the ridge.

A village that refuses to grow

Capilla’s population peaked at around 1,200 in the 1950s, then collapsed as mechanised farming and emigration hollowed out the labour market. Houses were abandoned, roofs fell in, and for two decades the place looked destined to become one more ruin on the Spanish interior. Instead, a handful of returning grandchildren began patching up the family homes, installing discreet solar panels and letting the thick stone walls do what they have always done: keep heat out in summer and cold out in winter. The result is a village that feels neither museum nor commuter dormitory; washing still hangs from wrought-iron balconies, old men still play dominoes under the lime tree, and the evening paseo still follows the same 300-metre circuit it has followed since the Civil War.

There is no hotel, no B&B, not even a bar. The nearest beds are in Zarza de Capilla, three kilometres down the road, where the municipal hostel charges €15 for a bunk and lets you use the kitchen. Most British visitors base themselves in Castuera, a 25-minute drive north, where the Hotel La Encomienda has doubles from €55 and a restaurant that serves cordero a la miel—locally reared lamb glazed with rosemary honey—without fussing about foam or reductions. If you want to eat in Capilla itself you must book ahead: the village women will cook for strangers, but they need notice to light the wood oven and knead the dough for the gachas, a comforting pap-and-pork stew that tastes better than it sounds.

Seasons and silence

Spring arrives late on the plateau. March can still bring frost at dawn, and the almond blossom hesitates until early April. By May the dehesa is loud with cuckoos and the night air carries the scent of broom. Autumn is brief: the stubble fields turn gold in October, the first rains soften the paths and migrant storks gather on the thermals above the castle, practising formations before the crossing to Africa. Winter is sharp—night temperatures dip below zero—but the skies are cobalt and the light so clear you can count the sheep on a hillside two kilometres away. Mid-June to mid-September is best avoided unless you enjoy walking at first light and spending the rest of the day motionless in the shade.

Silence is the commodity Capilla sells, though no one will charge you for it. Stand on the castle roof at siesta time and the only sound is the wind fluting through the battlements and, somewhere far below, a dog barking once, twice, then thinking better of it. British visitors used to the white-noise hum of motorways or the sea often find the quiet unsettling for the first hour; after that it becomes addictive.

Getting there, getting out

From Badajoz airport (flights via Madrid or Lisbon) it is 90 minutes on the EX-118 and local roads. The final 12 km twist through dehesa so open that sheep wander across the tarmac; dusk and dawn are hazardous, so plan to arrive in daylight. Car hire is essential—public transport reaches Zarza de Capilla twice a weekday, but the connecting bus to Capilla was cancelled in 2019. fill up before you leave the A-5; the village has no petrol station and the nearest supermarket is in Castuera.

Leave time for the detour to the dolmen of Lácara, ten minutes north-east: a Neolithic burial chamber wedged between two private fields, unlocked, unstaffed and visited mainly by local goats. Combine it with a plate of migas in the Venta de la Esquina, a truckers’ café on the old highway where the coffee is strong and the tobacco smoke thicker, then head back to the castle for sunset. The guide will have gone home, the gate will be locked again, but the view from the ridge is free and the light on the stone is the colour of burnt honey—no ticket required.