Tejeda de Tiétar

The morning bus from Plasencia drops you at the crossroads, engine ticking as it disappears towards the Gredos foothills. Fifty metres down the lane, an elderly man in a beret is hosing the dust off cobblestones outside a house the colour of burnt honey. He doesn't look up. Nothing in Tejeda de Tiétar moves fast enough to warrant acknowledgement.

At 446 metres above sea-level, the village sits low for Extremadura, low enough for the Tiétar River to curl round its fields instead of plummeting beneath them. The difference matters. Summers here top 38 °C but the water keeps the air heavy with oleander and damp willow; winter nights still drop to zero, yet the olive terraces rarely glaze. The result is a pocket of micro-climate that smells more like Andalucía than the high plateaux further north.

Adobe, not granite, is the building stone. Whole walls are sun-dried earth mixed with straw, then whitewashed until they glow apricot at dusk. Lean on one and you feel the day's heat stored inside; the technique arrived with Muslim potters eight centuries ago, lingered long after the reconquest, and gave the place its name—tejeda from tejar, the old tile kilns that once smoked on the outskirts. A handful of rooflines still carry the shallow, slightly uneven Arab tile that started it all.

River, Grove and Dehesa

Follow the lane past the church tower and the tarmac gives way to a dirt track under poplars. Five minutes later you are alone among tomatoes and pimentón peppers irrigated by a ditch the width of a Somerset rill. The Tiétar itself is broader than the English visitor expects—shallow, olive-green, sliding over slabs of quartzite. Kingfishers use the overhanging branches; in May the nightingales are loud enough to drown the tractor that sometimes passes.

Upstream, the valley narrows and the river pools. Local teenagers know exactly which rocks hide the deepest plunge holes; outsiders usually arrive in July when the water has already warmed to soup temperature. There are no lifeguards, no buoys, no entry fee—just a rough lay-by and a plank someone has wedged between two boulders as a makeshift bench. Flip-flops are advisable; the stones slice bare feet like broken glass.

Turn inland and the irrigated green ends abruptly. Holm oaks scatter across pale grass, each one pruned since the Middle Ages so its canopy is broad enough to shade pigs but open enough to let light reach the undergrowth. This is dehesa, half farm, half forest, the reason Extremadura supplies most of Spain's jamón ibérico. A network of stone walls marks ancient land divisions; walk far enough and you reach the abandoned pottery pits, now bramble-filled hollows where shards of ochre glaze still glint after rain.

What Passes for a Centre

The plaza is a triangle, not a square, flanked by the parish church and a single bar whose plastic tables creep across the pavement until the priest emerges and glares them back. Inside the church, the late-Gothic vault is painted custard-yellow, a 1970s refurbishment that should offend but somehow suits the place. The baroque altarpiece is better than the village size suggests—cedar wood carved in nearby Villanueva, gilded with American gold that probably travelled the same road the conquistadors took home.

Opposite, the 16th-century Casa del Comendador houses the town hall. The coat of arms above the door shows a wolf and a cauldron, symbols of the Knights of Santiago who once collected rent here in grain and lambs. The building is open only on Thursday mornings; step inside and you smell bureaucratic paper mingling with woodsmoke from the chimney that also heats the library next door. Ask nicely and the secretary will fetch the key to the tiny upstairs museum—two rooms of agricultural tools and a 1940s radio the size of a sideboard.

Beyond that, there is no centre. Streets spiral out like snail shell ridges, shrinking until a donkey could barely turn round. Some houses have glassed-in balconies—La Vera's answer to the draughts that whistle down from the sierra each evening. Others present nothing but a wooden door and a slit window, the upper storey jutting far enough to let occupants shake rugs over the heads of passers-by. Keep walking and you reach lanes where washing lines link opposite roofs, sagging under sheets that dry in twenty minutes during August.

Eating Without a Phrasebook

Hostal Los Rosales occupies the corner by the bus stop; its green awning is the brightest thing in sight. Inside, the television is always on but muted, and the proprietor keeps a faded photograph of Prince Charles accepting a plate of migas at some long-ago food fair. The set lunch costs €12 and arrives whether you order or not: soup thick with chickpeas, then pork shoulder stewed with pimentón, finally a slab of torta del Casar so ripe it collapses into its own rind. House wine comes in a glass bottle with no label; it tastes of tin and blackberries and costs another €1.50. Vegetarians get eggs and potatoes, no questions asked, no surcharge.

If you are self-catering, the morning van brings bread from Plasencia at 09:30 sharp; the driver toots, sells loaves from a plastic crate, and is gone by 09:42. There is no shop, only a freezer chest inside the bar where you can buy vacuum-packed chorizo or a box of ice-creams. Locals grow everything else—figs, quince, peppers—so expect gifts if you linger longer than a day. Refuse twice, accept the third time, and you will leave with a jar of honey that tastes of rosemary and river mist.

When to Come, When to Leave

Spring brings blossom so sudden the hills look snow-dusted; by late May the first irrigation ditches run dry and villagers start eyeing the sky. September reverses the drama—thunderheads build over the sierra, burst at dusk, and refill the pools where children learnt to swim six weeks earlier. Both seasons are ideal if you want walking weather that does not punish.

August belongs to the village itself. The fiesta for the Assumption fills every bed: returned emigrants from Madrid, grandchildren who now live in Basel, one British couple who bought a ruin on Calle Real and still can not explain why. Brass bands march at midnight, fireworks ricochet off the church walls, and the temperature stays above 30 °C even at three in the morning. It is fun, but it is not quiet.

Winter is sharp. The sun still shines, but shadows stretch across the narrow streets all day; pensioners in quilted jackets occupy the single sunny bench like gulls on a pier. If the Gredos get snow the access road closes for hours, sometimes days. Come then only if you have a fireplace, a car, and no pressing onward travel.

Getting Out Again

No railway comes near. From Madrid, take the ALSA coach to Plasencia (2 h 30 min, €22), then the local bus that leaves at 13:15 and again at 18:00 (45 min, €3.20). Check the timetable the day before—Friday afternoons the driver sometimes leaves early if no one is waiting. A taxi from Plasencia costs €35 and the drivers know exactly where Los Rosales is; they will expect a coffee if you arrive before the bar opens.

Leave room in your suitcase for the honey. And do not be surprised if, back home, the memory that lingers is not the church or the river but the moment the bus pulled away and the man with the hose finally looked up, lifted one hand, and went back to wetting the dust.