Valdecaballeros

The first thing you notice is the altitude. At 480 metres, Valdecaballeros sits high enough for the air to feel thinner, cleaner—like someone’s turned down the volume on everything except the wind. Below, the Embalse de García de Sola stretches out, a vast sheet of water that dwarfs the village itself. From the upper streets, you can see the reservoir’s fingers reaching into coves so still they reflect the dehesa oaklands like polished pewter.

This is La Siberia Extremeña, a region named not for polar temperatures but for its isolation. Badajoz lies 140 km west; Madrid, 245 km east. The A-5 motorway whispers past to the north, but here the pace is set by cattle grids and siesta shutters. Five thousand people live in the municipality, yet the centre feels half that size. Mid-morning in May, the main square holds more pigeons than pedestrians.

Water, not stone

Most Spanish villages trade on medieval walls or Renaissance portals. Valdecaballeros trades on water. The embalse—built in the 1960s to feed a hydroelectric plant—created 36 km of shoreline and a micro-climate that knocks three degrees off summer highs felt in nearby Don Benito. July afternoons still hit 38 °C, but the reservoir stays swimmable until October, its coves sheltering carp, black bass and the occasional holidaying family from Cáceres who arrive with cool-boxes and three generations of inflatables.

Access is patchy. From the upper village, a tarmac lane drops 2 km to Playa del Ensanche, the only spot with bins, toilets and (crucially) phone signal. Other entries are dirt tracks that turn to ochre paste after rain; hire-car companies notice every scuff. Bring footwear you don’t mind ruining, and don’t rely on sat-nav once the tarmac ends—Google still thinks one trail is a through road; locals have watched hatchbacks winched out of the mud for years.

If swimming feels too sedate, kayaks can be rented at the camping site on the eastern shore. Rates run €12 an hour, €30 for half a day, no licence needed for under 250 m from shore. Fishermen arrive at dawn with annual permits (€18 regional licence, sold online in Spanish only) and leave at dusk with zip-bags of lucio—pike that tastes better than it looks when stewed with smoked paprika.

A village that closes early

Back in the pueblo, the parish church of San Pedro Apóstol keeps village hours: open for mass at 20:00, locked by 21:15. Architecture buffs will find little beyond a serviceable nave and a bell-tower patched after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. The real appeal is the plaza outside: shade from two 200-year-old holm oaks, a single bar dispensing cañas for €1.30, and neighbours arguing over the merits of Extremadura’s latest goat-cheese regulations. Order a glass and you’ll be expected to weigh in—English is scarce, but enthusiasm counts.

Shops follow the siesta gospel. The Covirán supermarket pulls its shutters at 14:00 and reopens at 17:30 sharp; miss the window and supper becomes whatever the garage on the EX-115 stocks—mostly tinned mussels and condensation-cold beer. The bakery, Panadería Torvisco, produces crusty loaves at 07:00 and is usually sold out by 10:00. Arrive early, or plan on migas—fried breadcrumbs—instead of sandwiches.

Evenings fade quickly. By 22:30 even the dogs have turned in. If you’re staying self-catering, stock up on charcoal on Saturday; the ironmonger won’t open before Monday, and Sunday night barbecues lit with olive twigs are a smoky, eye-watering affair.

Walking the dehesa

For walkers, the GR-134 long-distance path skirts the reservoir’s northern arm, but day-trippers can manage a 7 km circuit from the village to the mirador at Cogollos. The route climbs 150 m through cork oak and wild lavender; in April the air smells like a pharmacy cupboard. Griffon vultures wheel overhead, and if you’re quiet you’ll hear the soft clack of cowbells before seeing the free-roaming Retinta herd. Keep dogs leashed—extremadura fighting bulls graze the same pastures, and they haven’t read the countryside code.

Winter hiking brings sharper light and empty trails, but also gusting northerlies that drive the wind-chill below freezing. The village can be cut off for a day if snow drifts across the EX-115; carry a blanket in the car from December to February, and don’t trust phone batteries in the cold.

Food that doesn’t photograph well

Local menus ignore Instagram. Carrillada—pork cheek stew—arrives as a dark, glossy heap with chips soggy from gravy. It tastes like Sunday lunch at a Spanish aunt’s house: comforting, faintly smoky, impossible to style for social media. Torta del Casar, the regional cheese, is liquid at room temperature; cut the top and scoop like fondue. A quarter-cheese (enough for two) costs €12 at the Friday market and will clear a car interior if forgotten on the back seat.

House red comes from Tierra de Barros, 60 km south; order “vino de la casa” and you’ll get a half-litre jug for €3.80. It’s soft enough to drink chilled at lunch, honest enough to induce an afternoon nap under the oak trees.

Fiestas: bring ear-plugs

Festivity calendar is short but loud. San Pedro (late June) means processions at midday, brass bands at midnight, and fairground rides that pack up faster than they appear. August fiesta adds foam parties in the polideportivo—think Ibiza rinsed through a village filter. Accommodation triples in price; book early or stay in the nearby hamlet of Talarrubias, where rooms still hover around €55 a night and taxi home costs €18.

Semana Santa is quieter: hooded cofradías, a single drum, women in black lace murmuring rosaries. Temperatures can swing from 24 °C at noon to 4 °C after dark; layers are essential.

Getting there (and away)

From the UK, fly Stansted to Madrid, pick up a hire car and head southwest on the A-5 for 2 h 45 m. Toll-free tarmac all the way, but fill the tank at the motorway services before exit 238; the last 40 km pass only one 24-hour station, and it’s often card-only. There’s no rail link and the daily bus from Badajoz departs at an agricultural 06:15, arriving before anything in the village is open—fine for locals, useless for visitors.

Car return at Madrid airport requires a 245 km dawn dash; allow three hours in case of lorry queues near Navalmoral de la Mata. Miss your slot and the excess-hour charge (€35) costs more than the entire Extremaduran leg of the trip.

Should you bother?

Valdecaballeros won’t suit monument tickers or night-owls. The Moorish arch or Gothic portal simply isn’t here; after dark you’ll need a pack of cards and a bottle of something red. What it does offer is space—geographic and temporal. A morning swim in water warm enough to stay in, an afternoon walk where the loudest sound is a bee hitting rosemary, and a bar bill that barely touches a tenner.

Come with provisions, a phrasebook and low expectations of phone signal. Leave with clean lungs, lake-salted hair and the realisation that Spain, for all its coasts and cathedrals, can still hide a village whose main attraction is the view outwards rather than in.