Fuenlabrada de los Montes

The morning sun has already baked the quartzite to furnace-level when the village baker pulls out the first loaves. At 539 metres, Fuenlabrada de los Montes sits high enough for the air to feel thinner, yet low enough for Extremadura’s summer to slam into the streets at nine o’clock sharp. By half past, the thermometre outside the pharmacy reads 34°C and the stone houses have slammed their shutters, turning the lanes into cool tunnels that smell of woodsmoke and orange-blossom honey.

This is La Siberia, a triangle of Extremadura that nobody in Britain has heard of. The name is a joke: winter nights here can drop to –8°C, but the season is short and the reward is crystal light across the oak meadows. Come April the dehesa greens up, wild orchids appear between cowpats, and the village’s 1,800 souls emerge to walk the livestock tracks before the real heat arrives.

A church, a plaza, and a reason to slow down

The Iglesia de San Juan Bautista squats at the top end of town like a referee watching the game. Its bell tolls the quarter hours, a sound that carries over terracotta roofs and the single traffic light that nobody bothers to obey. Inside, the nave is refreshingly plain: no gold leaf, just honey-coloured stone, a 17th-century altarpiece painted in ox-blood red, and a statue of the Baptist that locals dress in tiny robes for the June fiesta. Visitors expecting cathedral grandeur leave underwhelmed; those who sit for five minutes find the temperature drop of eight degrees reason enough to linger.

Outside, the plaza is a textbook example of Spanish municipal geometry: cobbles, plane trees, metal benches, one bar. The bar opens at 07:00 for coffee and churros, closes at 14:00, reopens at 17:00 for beer and tapas, and shuts again when the last customer leaves. Mid-afternoon, elderly men in berets play cards under the trees; their wives watch from doorways, arms folded over pinnies. It is not staged folklore – simply what happens when the day is too hot to move faster than a shuffle.

Carry on downhill and the streets taper into alleys wide enough for a mule but not a Range Rover. Laundry hangs from wrought-iron balconies; a tabby cat sleeps on the bonnet of a Seat that hasn’t moved since 2018. The village ends abruptly at the cemetery gate, beyond which the dehesa rolls out in every direction.

Oak trees, pigs, and a reservoir the colour of strong tea

The dehesa is not a forest and certainly not a park. It is an economic unit: holm and cork oak spaced 30 metres apart so grass grows for cattle and acorns fall for pigs. Each tree is privately owned – look for the painted initials – and the whole system has been ticking over since the Middle Ages. Walking trails exist, but they are farm tracks: stony, unshaded, occasionally blocked by a gate held shut with baling twine. Waymarking is sporadic; a Spanish-only sign reads “Peligro: toros bravos”. Heed it.

The easiest circuit starts behind the football pitch and climbs gently to the Ermita del Humilladero (2 km, 45 min). From the ridge you see the Embalse de García de Sola, a 36 km-long reservoir that turns the landscape from sepia to Technicolor. In May the water level is high enough to lap the base of drowned eucalyptus; by October the draw-down exposes a bathtub ring of pale clay where egrets stalk fish stranded in puddles. There is no sand, no beach bar, just a concrete slipway used by local lads who launch tin boats with 15-horsepower engines and a crate of beer. Swimming is tolerated on the western arm, 10 minutes by car towards Casas de Don Pedro, but wear sandals – the shore is a tangle of sticks and bottle glass.

Birders do better. Bring binoculars and scan the dead snags for osprey and black vulture; in winter the reservoir holds small groups of common crane. A quiet morning on the mirador above the dam can yield 40 species before the first beer.

What lands on the plate

Mealtimes obey the field, not the clock. If the matanza is on, every household spends the weekend turning a 150 kg pig into next year’s protein. A passing tourist will be handed a slice of morcilla still warm from the copper pan; refusal is rude. The rest of the year the speciality is migas – breadcrumbs fried in pork fat with garlic, grapes and bits of chorizo. It arrives in a mound the size of a bowler hat and costs €7 at Bar Juana on the plaza. Order a side of orange-blossom honey (produced by the cooperative 3 km south) and spoon it straight onto the crumbs; the sweet-salt contrast is the reason Spanish dentists drive BMWs.

Sheep’s cheese is another constant. The aged version, queso curado, is firm enough to survive the flight home wrapped in a sock. The village shop stocks three grades: 3-month (mild), 6-month (nutty), 12-month (suitable for grating or house foundations). Prices run from €8 to €14 a kilo; the owner wraps the wedge in waxed paper and writes the weight on the corner with a stub of pencil.

Getting there, staying there, leaving again

Fuenlabrada de los Montes is two turns past the middle of nowhere. The nearest large airport is Madrid; from the M40 take the A-4 south, swing onto the EX-390 at Don Benito and follow signs for Herrera del Duque. The final 25 km twist through wheat and olives; count on 2 h 15 min total if you resist the temptation to stop for jamon in Trujillo. Public transport is fiction: one bus a day leaves Herrera at 07:00, returns at 14:00, and does not run on Sundays. Hire cars are essential; fill the tank in Don Benito because the village garage opens when the owner feels like it.

Accommodation is limited. Casa Rural El Portezuelo sits 2 km south on the road to the reservoir – three bedrooms, pool, barbecue, €90 a night for the house. Book early at Easter and during the August fiestas when emigrants return and grandchildren sprout from every doorway. There is no hotel, no youth hostel, and Airbnb lists zero properties inside the village. Wild camping beside the reservoir is tolerated provided you pack out rubbish and do not light fires between June and September; the regional police patrol with binoculars and a loud-hailer.

When to come, when to stay away

April–June and September–November give warm days (22–26°C), cool nights, and green meadows. Spring brings orchids and nesting storks; autumn brings mushroom permits (€5 from the town hall) and the smell of fermenting acorns. July and August are furnace-hot: 40°C by noon, 25°C at midnight. Activities shift to the reservoir or to the hours around dawn. In winter the skies are cobalt, the dehesa turns khaki, and night frosts silver the windscreens. Snow is rare but possible; carry chains if you visit between December and February because the EX-390 is not a priority for the gritter.

Rain, when it arrives, is theatrical. A September storm can dump 30 mm in 20 minutes, turning farm tracks into clay ice-rinks. Waterproof boots and a Plan B (the church, the bar, the honey shop) prevent misery.

The honest verdict

Fuenlabrada de los Montes will never feature on a “Top Ten Spanish Villages” list. It has one ATM, intermittent mobile signal, and no souvenir stalls. What it offers instead is an unfiltered dose of rural Spain: the smell of oak smoke at dawn, the sound of hooves on cobbles, the sight of a black pig scratching its back against a 400-year-old tree. Come prepared – with Spanish phrases, sturdy footwear, and expectations scaled to match the population – and the village repays the effort in small, durable memories: a spoonful of honey on fried breadcrumbs, the bell of San Juan echoing across the reservoir, the realisation that somewhere in Europe life still moves to the rhythm of livestock and seasons. Arrive expecting nightlife or boutique chic and you will leave within the hour, slightly sunburnt and vaguely disappointed. The choice, as the barman says while he pulls the shutter down for siesta, is yours.