Quintana de la Serena

The thermometer drops five degrees between the valley floor and the village square. At 495 metres, Quintana de la Serena sits high enough for the air to carry a peppery scent of granite and wild thyme, yet low enough for holm oaks to survive the dry Extremaduran summers. Most visitors race past on the EX-118, bound for the better-known corners of Badajoz province. Those who turn off find a working town of 5,000 where the butcher still knows how each lamb was reared and the evening paseo is timed to the church bell rather than Google Maps.

Granite, Bread and Early Mornings

The Iglesia de San Blas dominates the skyline like a slab of toasted bread. Built piecemeal between the 14th and 16th centuries, its walls are quarried from the same grey-pink stone that paves the streets. Step inside at 11 a.m. on a weekday and the nave is cool enough to raise goose-bumps; the only sound is the clack of the bead counter in the sacristy. A single retablo, gilded in 1632, fills the central altar – worth the €1 donation box for anyone curious about how Counter-Reformation taste travelled this far west.

Outside, the Plaza Mayor functions as open-air living room. Elderly men in checked shirts occupy the stone benches in strict rotation; the women prefer the café tables under the arcades, nursing cortados that cost €1.20 if you stand, €1.40 if you sit. On Saturdays the square fills with the weekly market – four stalls of vegetables, one of kitchen knives, one of bras. Nothing picturesque, simply the weekly restock. If you need cash, the Cajamar ATM is inside the 19th-century town hall; it charges €2 but refuses Scottish notes, a lesson learned the hard way.

Walking the Dehesa without a Car

Three signed footpaths leave from the upper streets. The shortest (3.2 km, yellow way-marks) loops past the abandoned windmill of El Puntal and returns along a farm track where larks rise from the stubble. The longest (9 km, white-red) climbs to 650 m on the Lomo de la Corcha, giving views across the cereal ocean that stretches to the Portuguese border. Spring brings poppies and purple viper’s bugloss; after October the same soil is blond stubble that crunches like cornflakes. Take at least a litre of water – the fountains marked on the 1:50,000 map dried up in the 2015 drought and have never been repaired.

Winter walks have their own rewards. Cranes arrive from Scandinavia in November; by January several hundred feed in the surrounding fields, their guttural calls audible before you see them. Binoculars are essential – the birds spook if you approach within 200 m. Frost is common from December to February; the cobbles ice over and locals scatter straw rather than salt. If the forecast mentions “nevada”, expect the access road to be closed for half a day. Snow rarely settles longer than 24 hours, but the Guardia Civil are zealous about preventing stranded vehicles.

What Arrives on the Back of a Truck

Quintana’s restaurants don’t bother with tasting menus. Mesón La Piedra on Calle Sevilla serves lamb that left the surrounding dehesa that morning, roasted in a wood-fired oven whose temperature is judged by the cook’s forearm. A quarter-kilo portion costs €14 and comes with chips – frozen, not hand-cut, but no one apologises. The house wine is a young tempranillo from nearby Almendralejo; at €2.50 a glass it tastes better after the second. If the lamb has sold out (it often does by 3 p.m.), the fallback is migas: breadcrumbs fried with garlic, pepper and pancetta, topped with a fried egg. Vegetarians get scrambled eggs and apology.

Cheese is a quieter affair. Quesería Monteserena, five minutes out on the EX-395, makes raw-milk sheep’s cheese aged six months. The drying room smells of lanolin and damp stone; samples are skewered on toothpicks that bend under the weight. A one-kilo wheel costs €22, vacuum-packed for the flight home. Declare it at customs – the staff have heard too many stories of Heathrow bins.

When the Village Lets its Hair Down

Fiestas here are family affairs, not Instagram fodder. San Blas on 3 February starts with a dawn procession: residents walk behind the saint’s statue carrying candles that gutter in the wind. By 9 a.m. the square smells of anise and strong coffee; by midday the first brass band strikes up, loud enough to drown conversation. Visitors are welcome but there are no programmes in English. Ask the nearest abuela – she’ll happily recite the timetable from memory while steering you towards the doughnut stall.

August turns the volume higher. The fiestas patronales run the third weekend and import fairground rides that block the main road. Earplugs recommended if your hotel fronts onto Plaza de España; music finishes at 5 a.m. by municipal decree, loosely interpreted. On the final night locals dine in casetas erected on the football pitch. A plate of grilled chorizo and a plastic cup of beer cost €4; you’ll need to know someone to get a chair, but leaning on the railing is free.

Beds, Buses and the Three-Shop Rule

Accommodation is limited. Hostal Cristina has twelve rooms overlooking the municipal pool; doubles are €45 year-round, breakfast an extra €4 for coffee and churros brought from the bar next door. Sheets are polyester but the water pressure would shame a London boutique hotel. Book by phone – the website hasn’t been updated since 2014 and the booking form emails a dead address. The alternative is a casa rural in the outskirts; most require a two-night minimum and charge €80–€100. They come with fireplaces essential from November onwards; central heating is still considered effete.

Public transport reaches town twice daily. The Monday-to-Friday bus from Badajoz departs at 07:15 and 18:30, takes two hours and costs €7.35. Saturday service was axed in 2022. A hire car from Mérida (70 min) gives flexibility and costs around €35 a day in shoulder season; petrol is twenty cents cheaper than UK prices but motorway tolls are zero. Park on the southern edge – the old streets are 2.5 m wide and alloy wheels graze easily.

Shops shut between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. The bakery sells out of bread by 11 a.m.; the supermarket, Ultramarinos Lola, stocks UHT milk, tinned tuna and surprisingly good Kent apples at €2.40 a kilo. If you need paracetamol, the pharmacy keeps Spanish hours: open 9 a.m.–1 p.m., closed Saturday afternoon and all Sunday. Plan accordingly.

Leaving Without the Souvenir Shot

Quintana de la Serena will not hand you a highlight reel. The village offers instead a calibration of pace: bread that cools on a bicycle basket, a plaza where no one checks their phone, nights so dark you can read by starlight. Come for two days and you may leave wondering what you missed. Stay for four and the question reverses: what the rest of the world is rushing towards.