Pueblonuevo de Miramontes

The first thing you notice is the colour red hanging in mid-air. From late September strings of peppers swing from every balcony in Pueblonuevo de Miramontes, dripping scarlet against the white-washed walls while smoke curls from tiny brick huts at the end of each garden. This is not a tourist show – it is the annual paprika harvest, and the entire village of 767 people organises its day around it.

At only 282 m above sea level the settlement sits lower than most Gredos foothill towns, which means winters stay mild and the growing season stretches long enough for the coveted pimentón de la Vera to earn its Protected Designation of Origin. The altitude is still sufficient, however, to give the place its own micro-climate: mornings can be ten degrees cooler than the nearby city of Plasencia, and sudden July downpours keep the surrounding allotments improbably green for Extremadura.

A grid of adobe, stone and second-hand sunshine

There is no medieval quarter, no castle keep, no plaza mayor lined with orange trees. Instead the centre is a simple cross of two streets, Calle Real and Avenida de la Constitución, where the 19th-century parish church acts as the only landmark. Houses follow an unsentimental pattern: granite footings to keep out damp, adobe walls for insulation, wooden balconies painted the colour of Spanish school ink. Bougainvillea and geraniums appear in whatever paint-pot the owner found last – the overall effect is practical rather than pretty, yet the honesty feels refreshing after the themed restoration projects of better-known villages.

Walk ten minutes in any direction and the pavement gives way to red earth tracks that weave between vegetable plots no larger than a tennis court. Almond and cherry trees mark field boundaries; irrigation channels glint with mountain water channelled by the Vegas del Tiétar association. These paths are level, shaded by poplar windbreaks, and short enough for an evening circuit before supper. Sturdier boots are only needed if you intend to climb the mirador above the cemetery – a 45-minute zig-zag that lifts you 250 m and delivers a view across the entire La Vera belt of scattered white roofs and tobacco-coloured ridges.

What arrives on the plate

British visitors expecting tapas crawls will be disappointed; the village contains two cafés, one bakery and a single sit-down restaurant, Mesón La Fragua. Order the migas extremeñas (breadcrumbs fried with garlic, pepper and thick chorizo) and you will understand why local hikers do not carry snacks – the dish is half lunch, half ballast. Paprika turns up everywhere: dusted over octopus, stirred into a stew of bull’s tail, even sprinkled on the roasted almonds brought with the beer. Prices hover around €9–€12 for a ración large enough to split, and house wine is still poured from a plastic barrel kept behind the bar.

If you prefer to self-cater, the Friday morning market sets up on the football pitch and sells produce by the kilo: tomatoes whose skins wrinkle and split in the heat, avocados trucked up from the Andalusian coast, and strings of the same bola peppers you saw drying on balconies. A word on timing: shops close between 14:00 and 17:30; plan a siesta or you will find yourself staring at metal shutters with a hungry dog for company.

When the village decides to party

Festivals here are calibrated to agricultural dates, not school holidays. On the night of 16 January, neighbours stack olive branches into a bonfire for San Antón and stand around passing pottery cups of anís until the embers glow. Early February brings Las Candelas: at dawn residents carry homemade candles to the church, then spend the rest of the day judging each other’s torta del casar cheese for cracks. The first weekend of September is the Fiesta del Pimentón – a practical affair involving free tasting, a demonstration of oak-wood smoking sheds, and a race to thread 100 peppers the fastest. None of these events is advertised beyond a photocopied sheet taped to the bakery window; turn up and you are already part of the crowd.

Getting there – and why you will still need a car

No airline sells a direct ticket to Pueblonuevo. From London you fly to Madrid, pick up a hire car, and head west on the A-5 for 190 km. After Plasencia the road narrows to the EX-390, a mountain lane that corkscrews above the Tiétar river and finally drops you at the village in two hours and forty minutes. Public transport exists in theory – one bus a day from Madrid’s Estación Sur – but it terminates in Jarandilla de la Vera, 14 km away. A taxi from there costs €25 if you can persuade the driver to make the detour; pre-booking is essential because the rank is normally empty.

Accommodation choices are thin. British guests who reviewed Hotel Izán Puerta de Gredos praise its mountain-facing balconies and the fact that the heating actually works in January; doubles start at £85 including breakfast. Simpler but £30 cheaper is Hostal Avenida on the main road, notable mainly for the locked garage underneath – welcome relief if you have left a hire car full of luggage overnight.

The honest upsides – and downsides

Spring and autumn deliver daytime temperatures of 22 °C, ideal for walking the irrigation lanes while blackcaps sing from the poplars. In July and August the mercury can touch 40 °C by 11 a.m.; the village empties as farmers work dawn shifts and sleep through the afternoon. Winter is crisp rather than harsh, but mist rising from the river sometimes traps the smoke from paprika huts and turns every street into a cough-inducing fug. Come prepared with a scarf or choose your balcony carefully.

Mobile reception is patchy below the church, and the only cash machine belongs to Cajamar, a Spanish regional bank that routinely blocks foreign cards for sport. Bring euros or risk washing dishes. Finally, remember that Pueblonuevo is not a chocolate-box stop engineered for the visitor; it is a working village whose pride lies in the smell of smoked peppers drifting onto the pavement. If that sounds like your sort of place, time your visit for the pepper harvest, roll the car windows down on the approach road, and let the scent guide you in.